It Builds Character

Lucky 13

2008-11-06T22:40:00.011-06:00

Hard for me to believe, but my boy was born 13 years ago today. Now go ahead and tell me that this is not the cutest little angel who ever lived.

But time flies and kids grow, and here's my boy today, 13 very short years later.

He's such a good kid--I don't know how we got so lucky. Happy Birthday, Buddy. We love you very much!

One year anniversary

2008-07-29T21:31:00.005-05:00

Friday August 1st is the first anniversary of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I can't believe it's been that long already. They are rebuilding another bridge in its place and it's getting close to being done. It was supposed to be finished in December, but now it sounds like it'll be ready in September.

When it first happened, it didn't seem real. I think that's because I didn't hear about it until a few hours after it happened. Jason and the kids and I had gone out for dinner, and when we got home, there was a message from my mom, just making sure we were ok. Huh? It didn't make any sense. I called her to see what she was talking about, and she told me the 35W bridge had collapsed. It seemed so impossible and outrageous, that my first question was, "Were there people on it?" Uh, yeah, it was rush hour--6pm.

As the anniversary approaches, the local media are reporting on it and telling peoples' stories. The more I hear about it, the more I realize what a tragedy it was. It's not like I thought it was no big deal, but I think that because I have only seen the wreckage in photos, it seems less real. After it fell, there was no getting near the bridge, even if you wanted to. I’ve crossed that bridge hundreds of times, but without seeing it myself, it hasn’t fully sunk in.

But then I found this story in the local paper, the StarTribune. Check out this link. The first thing you’ll see is footage of the bridge actually falling. A nearby company’s security cameras caught the whole thing. When that footage is finished, there’s a picture of the entire bridge, with numbers on it. The numbers correspond to the names over to the right. If you click on the names, there is video of that person as they tell their story of how they survived. Or, in some cases, they talk to the spouse who has been left behind. Incredible. These people haven’t completely healed physically or mentally, and for most, it will be a long time until they do.

There's a new blog in town

2008-07-15T22:03:00.003-05:00

I have received a special request from a very special person in my life. A girl who, just four short weeks ago, was preparing to have surgery to drain a cyst in her brain. My daughter, Catherine, has started a blog of her own, and wants me to make an announcement to you all so that she'll get a little traffic over there.

You'll find her here. Just a couple of notes about the site...the name. No idea on this one. I asked her about it, and she said that there was a bag of Fritos on the desk when she was setting up her blog. Secondly, her name. She calls herself "Kathryn" on her blog. I think she figured that as long as she was spelling it differently, she isn't really using her "real name."

So if you want to make a 9-year-old girl really happy, stop by and say "hi" to her. She has posted quite a few pictures that she's taken with an old digital camera we had laying around. I just love the narrative that goes along with the pictures. Each picture she has posted is a completely new post, so I think she already has a couple of pages, so be sure to check them all out. I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of seeing the world through her eyes.

Funny kids

2008-06-27T22:22:00.003-05:00

So Sharkey left today. JP flew in from Philadelphia so that she wouldn't have to drive all the way home by herself. And knowing her, she would have fallen asleep while driving long before she hit the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. Alex, Catherine and I drove to the airport as well, so that we could see JP for a couple of minutes before they had to take off.

As usual, Alex had a tough time telling them goodbye. I think this time was especially difficult because Sharkey stayed with us so long, and we were getting used to having her and Maggie around. Quite a few tears were shed by him, which of course, resulted in tears from Sharkey.

We saw them off, then headed home. About a mile from the airport, while Alex was still pretty upset, it started to rain lightly. Alex said, "I think Mother Nature is mocking me!" We all had a much needed laugh at that.

Not a minute later, Catherine said, "Dang! I was gonna ask JP for fifty bucks!" I think he may have spoiled her a bit too much at the Cheese Festival a couple weeks ago.

Surgery update

2008-06-20T23:15:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post to give you an update on Catherine's surgery. We got to the hospital about 5:45am and got her checked in. We had to wait around a little while with a bunch of others who were scheduled for surgery as well. There were lots of little kids, and even a few infants. I can't imagine being those parents. So we finally got called back to the little room where they were going to have her get changed and get everything prepared. Instead of giving her one of those horrible gowns to wear, they gave her pants and a shirt, so that was nice.

You can see that she was in pretty good spirits. She was really amazing the whole time--she was really brave. She did have to fight back tears a few times, but she was so great. There was some patient advocate person who came to check up on her, and she brought in surgical caps for the 3 stuffed animals that Catherine had with her.

When it was time for her to head into the operating room, they let me go along with her. I had to dress in the whole surgical get-up--hat, mask, booties, jumpsuit. We made our way into the operating room, and that was by far the worst part. She started to fight it when they went to put the mask over her face to put her to sleep. So she was crying and trying to push it away and yelling. Of course, I was also bawling at this point as well--I hated seeing her so scared. After about 90 minutes, the surgeon came to the waiting room to let us know that the surgery went great, and they didn't run into anything unusual. There was a possibility that they might have to put a shunt in if the cyst didn't drain very well by itself, but luckily, they didn't have to resort to that. Jason and I were able to see her shortly after that. She was still very groggy, but she opened her eyes and the first word out of her mouth was a very weak "Mommy." She never calls me mommy anymore, so that made me a little teary as well. She started to cry and when I asked her why she was crying, she let out a pathetic little, "I don't know." Must have been all the drugs.

We were originally told that she'd be in the hospital for 2 days, but we were actually home by about noon today. She's been eating soup, soda crackers and fruit, and has just been laying on the couch resting. Her head has been hurting her a little, but she's been taking Tylenol for that. She's still a little emotional, but I guess that's what happens when you get all drugged up, get your head drilled into, and then have nurses wake you up every hour to shine a flashlight in your eyes.

We'll take the bandages off tomorrow, and she can shower and wash her hair on Sunday. (She said I can't blog the pictures of her with the bandages on her head, so I won't. But I'll post them on Flickr. What? It's not my blog!) I think she'll be as good as new in no time. Thank you all for the prayers, good thoughts, emails, and presents. It's wonderful to know there are such wonderful people out there who care and take the time to check on us.

And now it's bedtime. I've been awake way too long in the last 2 days.

Just kill me now

2008-05-29T21:55:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, Alex told me that his class was planning to take a field trip and asked if I could come along. He said they would be going on a bike ride from Welch, MN to Anderson Park in Red Wing. He said it's about 10 miles. Wow, 10 miles on a bike that I haven't ridden in years is going to practically kill me, but I told him I'd go along.

So for the past few days, I've been complaining to everyone at work about how this bike ride will be the death of me because I'm so out of shape and hello? TEN MILES ON A BIKE???

Tonight I found out some great news regarding the bike trip tomorrow. It's not actually 10 miles. It's 10 miles to the spot where we stop for lunch, then we bike the 10 miles back to where we started. TWENTY MILES, PEOPLE! It's been nice knowing all of you. Please remember me fondly.

We have a date

2008-05-17T11:38:00.003-05:00

It's official--we have a date set for Catherine's surgery. Thursday, June 19. We don't have a specific time of day scheduled yet, but they're going to call me back and let me know. I have limited information on the surgery itself, other than they're scheduling 90 minutes for it, and she'll be in the hospital for 2 days. I asked the nurse practitioner that I talked to, how long her recovery at home will be, how long Jason and I will need to stay home with her. She seemed a little confused by my question at first, and ended up giving me an answer of 3-4 weeks. Obviously, I've never gone through something like this before, but 3-4 weeks seems like a long time to me, but I guess we'll see. Jason and I can both take time off, and I can work from home as much as I need to. Plus, it doesn't hurt that one of my bosses is my best friend, and completely understands that kids come before work. Also, Sharkey and JP are coming to help out, so that will be great.

We haven't told Catherine that we have a date yet, because if she knows too far in advance, she'll have too much time to think about it and get freaked out. We'll wait till the date is a little bit closer. Thanks to all of you who have offered prayers and good thoughts for our family. They are very much appreciated. Between Sharkey and me, we'll keep you up to date as much as possible when the time comes.

The road ahead of us

2008-04-26T08:22:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a month now. Actually, I just realized that it's been exactly 1 month, to the day.

On March 26, 10 days after her 9th birthday, Catherine went outside with her best friend, Jordyn, and they were riding their scooters. Just regular Razor scooters, nothing fancy or motorized.

I was on the phone with Jason when Jordyn came and knocked at the door. She said that Catherine had fallen off her scooter and needed me. I hate to admit this, but my first thought was, "Jeez, that kid is such a wimp. She needs to toughen up!" In my defense, she does have a tendency to be over-dramatic when it comes to getting hurt.

So I hung up with Jason, threw my shoes on, and walked up to the area where she was. While they were riding on our street, it was quite a ways up there to get her, so my next door neighbor, who was leaving her house anyway, offered me a ride. I told her how I assumed that Catherine was over-reacting, and then said, "Now watch, when we get up there, there will be a bone sticking out of her leg or something."

No bones sticking out, but she did have a big ol' red knot on her forehead where she'd apparently come in contact with the street. She also had a skinned up knee that was bleeding a bit, but luckily, her jeans had not torn, therefore, it was a clean injury and I was thankful that I wouldn't have to clean dirt and sand out of it.

I knew she wouldn't be able to walk all the way home, so I walked back home and got the van and drove it up to her. The lady who lives in the house she fell in front of, waited there with her. When I came to pick Catherine up, the lady told me that Catherine was complaining that she couldn't see anything. That was the first thing that scared me. I actually had to walk her to the van like a blind person, and tell her to lift her leg up into the van. She was totally confused and had no idea what I was talking about.

We got home and I tried to clean up her knee. At this point I already knew that we'd be heading to the ER, but I wanted to get this taken care of. I tried to get her to take her jeans off so she could put a skirt on so that it wouldn't rub on her knee. She started taking off her jeans and her underwear. "No, leave your underwear on, just take your jeans off." She kept pulling her undies down. She just wasn't understanding what I was telling her. I finally took her jeans off her and helped her get the skirt on.

All I really needed to clean up her knee was a wet paper towel. I brought one out from the kitchen and she freaked out. She didn't want me touching her knee, she said she could do it. She'd put the wet paper towel on her knee, but nowhere near the blood, and say, "How's that?" because she couldn't see what she was doing. It became clear rather quickly that the knee was not going to get cleaned up, and considering how "out of it" she was and how nothing she was saying was making any sense, getting her to the ER was more important.

Again, I had to walk her out to the van like I was leading a blind person. Thoughts of me doing this for the rest of her life ran through my head at this point. I had no idea how bad her injury was, but I knew it was bad enough to scare the crap out of me.

On the way there, she kept saying how tired she was, and I could see in the rear-view mirror that she was closing her eyes and swaying back and forth, like there was just no possible way she could stay awake. I kept telling her not to go to sleep, and that we'd be at the doctor in a few minutes. When we got there, I had to do the whole leading her around thing.

We walked in, and the ER was really busy. I was surprised, because it was only about 6pm. I walked up to the front desk and informed them that she had fallen off her scooter, hit her head, and now can't see. At this point she was complaining again about how tired she was, and she was having some trouble standing there, so a guy brought over a wheelchair for her to sit in. While I was filling out a form with her name and address, she started saying that she had to go to the bathroom. Being that she was so "out of it" I didn't know for sure that she wouldn't just go right there while sitting in the wheelchair. I kept saying, "Just a minute, Catherine. We'll get you there in a minute. Don't pee right here!" She was getting defiant, and was trying to stand up. The guy at the front desk who was getting us checked in got a phone call during all of this. I waited patiently for about 3 seconds for him to get off the phone so I could ask him where the restrooms were. The ER was under construction, and the walls were all boarded up, so I couldn't really tell where they were. Catherine was getting more and more agitated by the second, so I finally just shouted, "WHERE ARE THE BATHROOMS???" A nurse heard the commotion and came over to see what was going on. She pointed out the bathrooms to me then waited for us to come out. Again, Catherine had no idea what she was doing in the bathroom, so I had to help her.

We came out and sat down with the nurse who helped us. After seeing how Catherine was acting, we got moved to the top of the list and left all of the other patients in the waiting room, in the dust. They brought her back to the area where they keep the scale, and tried to weigh her. She still couldn't see to get up on the scale by herself, so I was trying to lift her foot up and put in on the scale. That wasn't working, so the guy who originally brought us the wheelchair tried to pick her up from behind and set her on the scale. She screamed at him, "OW YOU'RE HURTING ME! STOP THAT! LEAVE ME ALONE!" This is totally not typical behavior for her. While she can be stubborn, she's not rude. At one point, she looked him straight in the eye and called him "Mom." Every minute that I spent with her I got more and more scared, because her behavior was so erratic and the things she was saying made no sense at all. The things I was saying made no sense to her.

There was a small TV mounted on the wall in her room inside the ER. Hannah Montana was on. I said, "Look Catherine, Hannah Montana is on." She said, "What's Hanna Montana?" Then she tried to say it again, and couldn't even form the words.

They took her back for a CT scan, and I went along with her. It was a struggle to get her to lay down on the machine so they could do the scan. She was scared. We tried to explain to her what we were trying to get her to do, but she didn't understand. She wouldn't stay lying down. I resorted to bribery and said, "If you lay down and let them take a picture of your head, I'll buy you a new Webkinz!" Her response was, "What's a Webkinz?" Anyone who knows Catherine knows of her obsession for stuffed animals, Webkinz in particular. She has 20 of them.

Finally we were able to calm her down enough to lay down and get the scan done. When we got back into her room, she was starting to come around a little bit. But for every moment that I could see the "real" Catherine coming back to me, there was a moment that she was still confused and obviously injured. I was starting to feel better because of this though. I was having fewer thoughts about her having some sort of permanent brain injury, and picturing Jason and me changing her diapers when she is an adult.

So as I'm feeling a little better about Catherine coming around again, the nurse came in the room and asked me, "Where is her Daddy?" I told her that he was at home with our other 2 kids. She said that I should call him and have him come in. I wanted to throw up. I was physically sick when she said that, because I thought that must mean the the scan showed some amount of permanent damage. She then told me that they were going to start an IV and that they were going to move her to another hospital. The doctor was on the phone making arrangements for the 2nd hospital, and they told me that she'd be in when she was finished.

The doctor, who was wonderfully calm during this whole thing, which, in turn, calmed me down, came in and told me that that scan showed no injuries from her scooter accident. Whew! That was such a huge relief and I was so thankful. However, she wanted to show me the picture from the scan they did. She said they found something that has probably been there since birth. She walked me over to the computer screen where I could see what looked kind of like an x-ray of Catherine's skull, from above. In the top right quarter of her skull, there was just a huge black, blank area. The doctor told me that it's a cyst on her brain. Again she told me that it's probably been there since birth, and has just grown. She said that she has made arrangements with the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital, and that she's talked to the head neurosurgeon there. When I heard the word "neurosurgeon" I totally lost it. A doctor to operate on my daughter's brain. Again, I wanted to throw up. She said they'd take us by ambulance and that Jason could follow behind us in his car.

As scared as I was by this news, at the same time I was still so relieved that there was no permanent brain damage from Catherine's accident. I called Jason and told him a little bit of what was going on, so he made arrangements to drop Alex and Lauren off with some friends. He got there just in time to jump behind the ambulance.

We drove the 1/2 hour or so to the U and got her checked into the Pediatric ICU. The doctors and nurses all asked Catherine what had happened to her. Each time, she patiently explained that she was riding her scooter with her friend. They were riding down a slope on our street when she started going too fast and lost control. She didn't have her helmet on because she'd left it at school a couple of weeks prior, when they had a unit in P.E. where they were rollerblading. She followed their fingers, touched their noses, everything they asked her to do. By this time, she was completely back to herself.

I stayed with Catherine all night, while Jason went home to get some sleep because there was only room for 1 of us in her room. Jason was back by 7am because that's when the doctors were scheduled to come in and talk to us. The head neurosurgeon, Dr. Haines, showed us the picture from the scan they did in the ER the night before. This is the first time that Jason saw it. The doctor pointed out the midline of the brain and said that, obviously, it should be right down the middle of the brain. You could see that Catherine's midline was no longer in the middle, but was being pushed aside by the cyst. After asking us questions about how she is doing in school, if she has a history of headaches, that sort of thing, the doctor determined that there was no need for emergency surgery, but eventually something would need to be done. He suggested that we schedule surgery to drain the cyst sometime after the school year ends. That way she won't miss any school, and we can make whatever arrangements and plans that we need.

They did an MRI that morning as well, and her discharge papers were ready when we got back to her room. We had a follow-up appointment 2 weeks later and got to see the results of the MRI. It didn't really give them any information that they didn't already have, but it was really cool to see the pictures.

At the follow-up appointment, we were really hoping that Catherine wouldn't have to be in the room when we talked to the doctor about the surgery, but there was really no way to avoid it. She cried and cried, and by the time the doctor left the room, she was sobbing. She said she understood why she needs to have the surgery, she's just scared. Can't blame her for that! So it was left that the doctor's office would call us at some point to schedule the surgery to drain the cyst. We haven't heard anything yet, but I would assume that sometime in the next month or so we'll get a call.

She's ok with things now. She's told her friends and teachers at school about having to have surgery, so it's become kind of a "cool" thing for now.

So as it turns out, Catherine's scooter accident was really no "accident." We believe that it happened for a reason, and we are so thankful for that. If the cyst had continued to go unnoticed and grow, it could have resulted in permanent brain injury when it pushed just a little too hard.

We know how lucky we are. That she had the accident, that there was no permanent brain damage, that they found the cyst, that it wasn't cancer, and that she is not the little boy in the next room in the ICU, who was waiting for his 2nd heart transplant.

Please keep Catherine in your thoughts the next few months. I'll update when we have a date set for the surgery. Here are a few photos of her injuries from her fall.

Wrong

2008-04-26T08:17:00.003-05:00

Check out the weather here right now. Here, in Minnesota. On April 26.

There is snow on the ground. I just dropped Alex off for his Boy Scout camp out. It was so windy out that I could not see anything because my hair was blowing in my face. When I got back in my van, my face was bright red from the wind and the cold. Will somebody please remind me why I live in MN?

He got it from Santa

2008-04-25T21:04:00.003-05:00

Tonight as we were driving home from Target, Alex and I were discussing all the things he needs to get packed up to get ready to go camping with his Boy Scout troop. He leaves tomorrow morning, and will be camping inside Eagle Cave, near Madison, WI.

Since there's rain in the forecast, I mentioned that he should pack his rain gear in his bag. Lauren shouted from the back of the van, "Alex has a REINDEER?!?"

Have you hugged your dog today? - Part II

2008-03-07T21:41:00.003-06:00

Monday night, we spotted the dog running down the busy street. Tuesday night, we saw the missing dog flyer and called the number that was listed. Wednesday morning at work, I got a call from the lady. She didn't get my message until just before she called me. I told her that I was hoping the reason I hadn't heard from her was that the dog had been returned. No such luck.

She said they've gotten a lot of calls from the flyers they put up all over town, but the dog (a purebred Wheaton Terrier) is so scared of people that he won't come to anyone. The family has only had the dog for about 3 weeks. They got him from a shelter who got him from a breeder. He had been neglected, and the lady said that he was almost certainly abused as well. She said she could tell by the way he would go into his kennel when they were about to leave. He acted as if he had been kicked into his kennel in the past.

It turns out that Bubba didn't break his chain while he was outside. Because of his past, he startles easily, so when they had the dog outside on the leash, they needed to have the leash wrapped around their hand, just in case he got scared and tried to run away. The dad had him outside on his leash, but did not have it wrapped around his hand. The dog was startled by something and bolted. That's the last they saw of him.

The lady said that her kids are absolutely heartbroken. I'm not sure how many she has, but I know that one of them is in middle school, so anywhere from 12-14 years old. This daughter had bonded with the dog the most. She actually has her own dog walking business, and gives half of her earnings to the humane society. It's just so sad that these people, who clearly love dogs, tried to save this one, and have now lost him. When I talked to the lady, she was of course, fearing the worst because the dog is too scared to come to anyone. I can't even imagine now knowing where your pet is. Did he get hit and killed by a car? Did he freeze to death? Did someone earn his trust and bring him into their home? If they knew the answers, I'm sure they'd be sleeping a lot better at night.

Have you hugged your dog today?

2008-03-03T21:18:00.005-06:00

UPDATE: Tonight, Jason and I took the kids to Applebee's for dinner. As soon as we walked in the door, Alex shouted, "Mom, look at this!" It was a poster for a missing dog. A dog that looked a lot like the one we saw running down the road last night. It said that his name was Bubba, and he is a bit skittish, because they just adopted him from a shelter. I called the number on the poster, but only got a voice mail. I left my name and number, and explained why I was calling. That was about 3 hours ago, and I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm going to plug my ears and sing "lalalalalala" and assume that the lack of response from them means that they have their dog back, safe and sound.

Tonight on the way home from Boy Scouts, Alex and I had kind of a scary experience.

It was about 8:45, so it was completely dark. We were on a 2-lane road where the speed limit is 50, I think. We came upon a car that was frantically flashing its brights, so the car ahead of me and I both slowed down to see what was going on. I assumed it was an accident or something, until I saw the reflective leash bouncing down the middle of the road. Some poor little puppy had broken it's chain and had escaped. As I got closer to it, I slowed down more and rolled my window down and called to it.

Just then, a car came up over the hill from the other way. I flashed my lights like crazy at the car, but he seemed to not have a clue that something was going on, he just kept barreling toward the dog. At the very last second, the driver saw the dog, and swerved and honked. The dog swerved a little bit the other way. The car came ***this*** close to hitting the poor little loose dog. So close, that I actually shouted , "Alex, don't look!" It would have been bad enough for me to see that happen, but he would be completely inconsolable and haunted.

At that point, I had come to a complete stop and turned my hazards on. I jumped out of the van and started calling to the dog. "Here puppy, come here!" He seemed like he was going to come to me for a second, then changed his mind and ran down the embankment into a housing development. There was really nothing else I could do then. It was a pretty steep, snowy hill, and I couldn't even see him anymore.

Alex was still worried, and so was I, of course. We have no way of knowing what happened to him, but I told Alex that I'm choosing to believe that someone will find him tonight and keep him warm. It's pretty cold out tonight, about 7 degrees right now. I hope he finds his way to someone's door soon, because I'm sure there's someone out there who went to let their dog in, and was devastated to find only half a leash.

4 going on 14

2008-02-22T21:17:00.002-06:00

The other night, I took the girls to swimming lessons. Lauren goes from 6-6:30 and Catherine's lessons are from 6:35-7:20. As Lauren and I were sitting in the bleachers, watching Catherine swim, Lauren was playing with my cell phone. She likes to press all the numbers, and she has figured out which button to push to activate the camera. She was having a good time taking pictures of the pool, her feet, my purse, my sweater, basically anything she saw. Then she started taking pictures of me, but she was standing right next to me, so they were all VERY close up. She took one of my nose that was so close up, that it was only my nostril.

"Nice," I said.

She looked at it and said, "This one is SO going on the Internet!"

Innocent cartoons

2008-02-08T21:39:00.000-06:00

I took the kids swimming tonight, then we swung through the drive-thru at the local Wendy's for a frosty. As we were sitting at the dining room table eating the frosties, Catherine called Lauren Boo Boo. (Lauren's nickname is Boo.) I said something like, "Who do you think you are, Yogi Bear?" Given today's crappy cartoons, Catherine had no idea what I was talking about. I went over to my laptop on the couch and googled "Yogi Bear." A couple of pictures showed up, so I called Catherine over to look at them and show her who I was talking about.

A couple entries down on the google page, there was a link to a You Tube video that said "Yogi Bear theme song-real funny." So I clicked on the link and all 3 kids and I watched it. Now YOU watch it, and guess at what point I scrambled for the mouse to shut it off. Watch.

If you guessed that I shut it off when it started talking about Suzy shaving her pubic hair, you would be correct. I probably should have shut it off during the part about the whips and chains, but I didn't. After I shut if off, Catherine asked me, "What's public hair?"

All three of them were absolutely dying laughing, knowing they had just seen something they shouldn't have. At that point, there was nothing I could do but laugh along with them. Note to self: never watch anything on You Tube with the kids without viewing it myself first.

The dog needs to get out more

2008-02-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight, she was barking at the popcorn popping in the microwave.

Do you know what this means?

2008-01-29T20:50:00.000-06:00

This means that it's really freakin' windy out today. If you're familiar with Perkins restaurants, you know that this is a gigantic flag, and it isn't set into motion easily by a slight breeze. This thing was whippin' in the wind today.

And being that it's January in Minnesota, that wind made it unbearable to be outside, even just for a minute. Check this out:

Yep, -11 degrees with a -36 windchill, or if you're a moron, -36 "windshield." But if you ask Lauren, she'll tell you that it's 16 inches below zero. (I don't know where she came up with that, but that's what she told me on the way home from daycare tonight.) And as if today's temperature is not bad enough, look at the weather we had yesterday:

Since I don't know anything about putting any type of graphics on a photo, I'll have to point out the area that says that yesterday's high was 43 degrees. Forty-three degrees in January in Minnesota is like summer weather! People were outside with no coats on, it felt downright tropical!

So, though it's not my strong suit, lets do the math here. Yesterday, 43 degrees. Today, -11 actual temperature. That's a 54 degree difference! (Right? I told you I was bad at math!) If you want to factor in the windchill, we're talking a difference of 79 degrees!!! I dare you to tell me that's not ridiculous. Now, granted, the 43 was yesterday's high, and the -11 was from about 8pm tonight, but let me assure you, it wasn't much warmer this afternoon when the sun was out. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of cruel joke, but I ain't laughin'.

Don't tell Jason, but a move to Tennessee sounds pret-ty darn good right about now.

On a more serious note, my 26 year old cousin, Becky, was just told that some of the suspicious cells that her doctor found were, indeed, cancer. She'll know more about treatments, etc. next week. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Things I did and learned this weekend

2008-01-13T19:30:00.000-06:00

Saturday was a busy day and we did lots of running around. Catherine had a birthday party to go to and we hadn't bought her friend a present yet, so we ran to Target in the morning. Having all 3 kids with me, the trip took longer than it should have, of course. Everyone had things they wanted to look at and drool on.

When we got back from there, I did a little bit of cleaning. I had to clean out the refrigerator a little bit, because the kids and I had pizza Friday night, and the pizza box wasn't fitting in the fridge very well. There were 3 Tupperware or other kinds of plastic containers that I removed from the fridge. When I removed the lids, I actually contemplated taking pictures for your viewing pleasure, but thought better of it. I don't want anyone calling Child and Family Services on me or anything. One of the bowls had nasty moldy Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada in it. Another was a bowl of flavored rice--like chicken and broccoli or something. The third bowl was leftover pot roast with potatoes and carrots. It wasn't moldy like the other stuff, but it had to go anyway. Sometimes I actually throw away old food before it grows fuzz. I'm crazy that way. Anyway, I wasn't sure about putting the roast beef down the garbage disposal, so I threw that in the garbage can. Then I slowly put the carrots and potatoes down the disposal. I didn't want to overwhelm the it. There! Done!

This morning after I gave Zelda her food, I went to give her some fresh water. I ran the water for a few seconds to get some that was really cold, and pretty soon I noticed that the drain started to fill up. I ran the disposal, thinking that it would take care of anything that might be down there. It started to come back up in the other sink. Uh oh. I stopped the dishwasher that I had started running so it wouldn't drain more water into the sink. I called Jason in to inspect the damage I had done.

It just so happens that I bought a big thing of Liquid Plumr the other day for the bathrooms. Jason read the directions and poured the proper amount into the water where the drain was. The directions clearly stated that you need to let the gel work its magic for 15 minutes before running the water again. It specified that if you were using the product on a kitchen sink, that you should follow the regular directions (of letting it sit for 15 minutes) and then run the disposal when you turn the water back on. Four minutes in, he decided to turn on the disposal. It sucked the water down one side, but it came back up the other side. Great. It didn't work, and now we'd have to use gloves for anything that we did after that, because the water was all sudsy and full of Liquid Plumr.

After the Liquid Plumr debacle, we tried plunging it. You could hear the water moving around down there, but it didn't jar the stuff loose. The only thing that happened was it threw the Liquid Plumr water all over the place and ruined the t-shirt that Jason was wearing. He was bummed, as he had just gotten it for Christmas, and it advertised one of his favorite beers, Guiness.

Then I learned how a snake works. I would estimate our snake at 20-30 feet long, and we had that sucker weaved all the way to the end, but still nothing. Well, nothing but a dirty nasty kitchen rug from the snake after we removed it from the drain.

We decided it was time to bring in the big guns. Roto Rooter. Jason and I were both thinking that it would cost us an arm and a leg since it was Sunday, but there wasn't much else we could do. I called, and the guy showed up within a couple of hours.

As he was getting his stuff set up, I asked him what the worst foods are for a garbage disposal. He didn't hesitate a second before saying, "Starches. Rice, potatoes, pasta."

Hmmm...Potatoes? Check. Rice? Check, check (the Hamburger Helper meal was mostly rice). Clogged that thing good. Turns out, he had to run his snake 40 feet down there to get to the clog. (Doesn't the word "clog" sound nasty, or is it just me?)

The price actually wasn't too bad. When I went online to look up the phone number for Roto Rooter, there was a link to a coupon for $25 off. I asked the guy how much more it was for him to come out on a Sunday as opposed to a weekday, and he said that they didn't charge a premium for that anymore! What are the chances of that?!? Overall, it ended up costing us $144. Sure it's money I could have spent on something more exciting, but it was totally worth it to have access to running water and a sink that drains again. I will never take that for granted again. Until next time.

Merry Christmas from Zelda

2007-12-18T17:35:00.001-06:00

Sharkey put out an invite to everyone with critters and/or kids to show them donning their gay apparel.

Here's Zelda in "elf mode." She actually did a lot better with it than I thought she would. She fought it a little, but not too bad. Originally, I told the kids that we'd have to put this on her right after she wakes up, when she's too tired to care. However, tonight right after I called for pizza, I realized that the big day was tomorrow. So I seized the moment and got her all gussied up. Pretty cute, huh?

Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for the invitation, Sharkey!

The song that got on everybody's nerves

2007-11-04T21:26:00.000-06:00

Driving home from the mall tonight, Catherine taught Alex and Lauren a new song that she and her friend sing sometimes. A few hours later, it's still in my head. Sing the following to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round:"

I've got a song that gets on everybody's nerves
Everybody's nerves
Everybody's nerves
I've got a song that gets on everybody's nerves
And this is how it goes

Snappy, huh? You're welcome.

On a totally separate note, I took the kids to see "Bee Movie" today. I (and the kids) really enjoyed it. There were times that I even laughed out loud. There were a lot more famous people in there than I knew there was. Oprah, Sting, Kramer from Seinfeld, Chris Rock. And as much as I despise Renee Zellweger, I thought she was really good in this. I suppose that since I can't stand the way she always looks like she just smelled something foul, I can stand her in a movie where I don't have to look at her.

After the movie, we went to the mall because Alex needs a new winter coat before he goes to Boy Scout camp this weekend. We ended up buying Lauren a new one too, and new shoes for Catherine.

As we were walking through JCPenney toward the parking lot, we found some Minnesota Wild fuzzy throws. Jason and I enjoy watching the Wild and going to games when we can. Being that the blankets were on sale, I asked the kids if they would like to get Jason one of the blankets for Christmas. They thought it was a good idea. As we were looking at them and deciding between 2 different styles, Lauren was looking at some items nearby. I didn't think she even realized what we were picking out. When we got to the van, I reminded the kids to just forget that we bought a Christmas present already, and don't mention anything to Dad.

When Jason got home tonight, I said to Lauren, "Tell Dad what we did today," meaning that we saw a movie. "We bought you a hockey blanket!" Niiiiiice. That secret was kept for about a half an hour. Good thing that kid's so cute.

Life Lessons

2007-11-02T21:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything for a long time, but something happened tonight that I'll probably forget about if I don't write about. I always think I won't forget, but then, of course, I do. This way, I'll be able to look back and laugh on it. I sure laughed earlier tonight when it happened.

This evening while Catherine was getting ready to get into the shower, I went into my room and turned on the TV for a few minutes before I had to go in and help her. The TV was on NBC when I turned it on, so for a little bit I watched the show that was on so I could figure out what it was. Turns out it was "Friday Night Lights," which I have never watched, but have heard good things about.

From the previews I sometimes see during the week, I know that the coach's wife recently had a baby. She came home and was talking to her husband about the book club she had just attended, and how nice it was to finally get out again by herself and be around other adults.

At this point, Catherine came into the bedroom and the TV caught her attention. The wife on TV started talking about how her breasts were really sore and felt "like concrete." She said she needed to go pump and dump. Catherine asked why she was sore there. I explained that after a woman has a baby, her body goes through all sorts of changes and weird things. I said that since the woman feeds the baby with her breasts, sometimes they get so filled with milk that they get sore.

Catherine: "You mean the baby eats off their breasts?"

Me: "Well...yeah," thinking that it was weird that she didn't know this, since she saw me breastfeed Lauren a million times.

Catherine: "Oh. I thought they just ate whatever was on the mom's stomach."

Me: "You mean like whatever crumbs happened to fall on her stomach from whatever she ate earlier in the day?"

Catherine: "Yeah," now laughing, realizing how silly that sounded.

I about lost it. I laughed so hard. Sometimes she can take something like that really personally and feel hurt when someone laughs at her like that, but for some reason, she just laughed too. I guess she was only 4 when Lauren was born, so if at any point she did realize where Lauren was eating from, she has probably forgotten. This will be good for a laugh for a long time!

P.S. Catherine got her hair cut tonight, and looks so cute! The lady gave her some layers since her hair is so thick. Check it out...

Big Sisters

2007-07-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

Lauren: "Mom, does my shirt say 'Doof?'"

Me: "What?"

Lauren: "Does my shirt say 'Doof?'"

Me: "No, it says KMYSA Soccer."

Lauren: "Oh. Catherine told me it said 'Doof.'"

Wild Kingdom

2007-05-18T20:25:00.000-05:00

Strange things have been happening around here this week. I have seen things these past few days that I have never seen before.

I stayed home with Lauren on Tuesday, as she wasn't quite feeling up to being at daycare. At first I thought maybe she had developed some allergies, as her eyes were puffy and watery, and her nose was runny. When I got her to daycare, her teacher noticed that she had a rash on a few places on her body. I took her home with me and made an appointment for the doctor to see her.

After her appointment, we were sitting at the dining room table eating lunch, and I noticed that there were a lot of birds in our back yard. Nothing special, just robins and some type of black bird, but there were LOTS of them there. I sat there looking through the patio doors at them, wondering if there was some significance to so many of them being out there. Did it mean it was going to rain or something? I looked away for a second, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see some sort of commotion outside, and then all the birds immediately flew away. I looked up and saw something that I'm still replaying in my mind because it was so strange. A hawk swooped down and picked out one of the black birds for its lunch. I just remember seeing this huge light brown bird carrying a smaller black bird in its talons and flying toward the house. Off to have some lunch! Jason and Lauren found some very familiar black feathers outside the next day.

The second and third strange things both happened today. I went in to Catherine's room this morning to wake her up to get ready for school. She was lying in bed, already awake. That was very surprising to me because getting her up for school is like trying to wake the dead. I told her good morning, and she said that the ducks woke her up. I listened for a second, and sure enough, there was some quacking coming from outside. This was not completely surprising as we had a couple of ducks in our front yard a week or two ago. Not exactly sure why, because there's no water in the immediate area. Anyway, the quacking this morning sounded like it was right outside the window, so I slowly pulled the blinds and looked down. I had to practically press my face against the 2nd story window to see them, because they were straight down from where I was. There was a male and a female. Guess what they were doing? Yep, making little ducklings. Catherine came over to get a good look, but luckily didn't ask any questions. I looked again just in time to see the male waddle away looking all satisfied, and then he took off. Just as he was flying off, another male flew in. Maybe he heard that this duck was easy, I don't know. I watched them for a little while, and they ended up just laying in the grass and sleeping. They were there for a good couple of hours, I'd say.

Then just a few short hours later, I heard a thud at the front door. I was home alone--kids were at school and daycare, and Jason was at work. I walked over to the door to see what was going on, and there was a young robin on the front step. He must have flown into the door or the window next to the door. They're not even that clean! Anyway, he was pretty dazed. He hit it hard! It sounded like someone hitting the door with an open hand. He jumped off the step and hopped over to the side of the house and just sat under the down spout. I'm thinking, "Oh crap, this bird is hurt and I'm either gonna have to do something about it, or feel really guilty for just leaving the bird there to heal itself or die." I managed to get a couple of pictures of it hiding out. I decided that I needed to figure out how hurt it was, so I opened the door and it hopped away and hid under some shrubs--good sign. I walked around to see if I could get a better look, and he flew away up into the tree. Whew! I was off the hook!

Oh, I almost forgot about the seal that was at our house Wednesday night. Ok, so it wasn't an actual seal, but Lauren sure sounded like one when she coughed. It was about midnight when I had just gone to bed and Jason was still downstairs on the computer, and Lauren started coughing and hacking like there was no tomorrow. She was coughing so hard she could barely breathe. So I grabbed the nebulizer out of the cupboard and ran downstairs to the kitchen to get the albuterol. We did the neb treatment with her fighting the mask almost the whole time. She usually thinks its fun to use that mask to get her medicine, but I think that between her being so tired and us shoving it into her face so fast, it freaked her out a little bit. Unfortunately, the treatment didn't help as much as it usually does, and she was still having to work really hard to breathe. I looked at Jason and said, "Well, should I bring her in?" We decided that was the best thing to do, as breathing is a very important part of living. Jason threw her jacket on over her pajamas, shoved her little feet into some shoes while I got myself dressed and looking halfway presentable. The nearest ER is only about 10 minutes from here so we hopped in the van and off we went at about 12:15am. It wasn't really an emergency, I mean, I didn't think she would stop breathing or anything. We've been through this before. I would just prefer to be safe rather than sorry for not taking her in just because it was the middle of the night. Besides, it's not like I would have been able to sleep after that. I'd be worried all night that she would stop breathing and we wouldn't have any way to know. On the way to the ER, she really perked up and was very chatty. For anyone who knows Lauren, this is normal behavior. She never really stops talking, so the fact that her mouth was going 100 mph was a good sign and I felt a lot better.

When we got there, they took her vitals and slapped a tiny bracelet on her wrist. Then we went into a room and she was very excited to lay on the bed. A nurse wheeled a TV, VCR and two big tubs of movies in, and we popped in The Little Mermaid II, which Lauren has never seen. We were at the ER long enough for her to watch the entire movie, as well as a good chunk of a Dora movie. They diagnosed her (Lauren, not Dora) with croup. They gave her a steroid to reduce the swelling of her vocal cords, which is what makes the cough sound barky. We got home about 3am. I was afraid that she was too awake to head back to bed, but she settled right down, thankfully. I took a few pictures with my phone of her in her little hospital gown, but I haven't figured out how to get the pics onto my computer yet.

She really enjoyed her time at the ER. She actually asked me to take her back tonight so that she could watch more movies. I told her I didn't want to pay another $75 rental fee (co-pay).

So basically, it's been a little like Wild Kingdom around here lately. I'm almost afraid to find out what the next strange event will be. Judging by the way things have been going, it's a matter of "when" it happens, not "if."

Oh, the cuteness!

2007-02-24T08:26:00.000-06:00

Come on! Even if you're not a "cat person, " you have to admit that this is adorable!

Funniest thing I heard all day...

2007-02-23T19:35:00.000-06:00

As we were driving out of the Target parking lot tonight, Lauren was trying to put her new candy necklace on.

"I can't get it over my big melon head!"

J.R. Salzman

2007-02-21T21:11:00.000-06:00

Wow, it's been over 2 months since my last post. Time flies, huh? It seems that when something unusual happens, or one of the kids says something hilarious, I think, "Oooh! I've gotta remember this so I can write a blog post about it!" And then a couple of hours later, I find myself thinking, "Crap! What was it that I was going to remember so that I could write about it?" I'm pushing 35 here, people. Cut me some slack.

So what brings on this sudden urge to post? Something pretty major has happened. It's something that really makes you think about the things that are important and makes you very grateful for all the soldiers fighting for our country.

Jason has a friend who was in Iraq. His name is J.R. Salzman. He got in touch with Jason when he found out that he was being deployed, just to let him know what was going on. That all by itself was an eye-opener--that was the closest that the war had come to us. We didn't personally know anyone else who had been over there.

I don't know J.R. myself, I've never met him. Jason used to work with him a few years back up here in the Minneapolis area. Then we moved down near Rochester, MN, and after a while, Jason found out that J.R. had moved to Rochester as well. He was in the construction business, and if I remember correctly, had started his own business. All I really knew about him can be summed up in this paragraph from the Lumberjack World Champion website.

"JR Salzman, 25, a carpenter from Hayward, Wisconsin and a National Guard Army Reservist has been competing in logrolling for the past 19 years. JR has held 5 world titles simultaneously with his sister from 1998- 2002."

Not only was he a world champion, he won an ESPY award, did some modeling, and was in "Cheaper By the Dozen 2" with Steve Martin. I haven't seen the movie, but from what I understand, he was in a log-rolling scene with Steve Martin.

Jason got an email from J.R.'s wife yesterday saying that he had been injured in Iraq. His right arm was blown off, and he has nerve damage in his left hand. He also lost the ring finger on his left hand. He seems to be doing amazingly well in spite of all that. He's at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC, where he'll be for the next year or so. Here's a bit of what he wrote on his blog, http://www.jrsalzman.com/weblog/:

"I'm doing the best that I can, considering. I spend a lot of time really pissed off or really upset. I know I am getting better at a pretty good rate, but still. In Iraq I was the go to guy for anything that could go wrong with my CET's (convoy escort team) humvees. I was the guy that could build or fix anything. Heck, I even built the door and a bench for the building our company stages in for convoys, simply because I was bored and had a little extra time before I went on R&R in November. There was nothing I couldn't fix, build, or do. Now I'm struggling with the mentality that I'm just a one armed, four fingered gimp. I have sharp memories of the accident that haunt me everyday; the sudden explosion, the taste of blood in my mouth, realizing the bottom half of my arm was missing with nothing left but a couple of fingers and part of my hand hanging of by some skin and tendons, and then realizing how much pain I was in. All I could do was hold the end of my blown off right arm with my shrapnel filled left hand and wait for the medic to arrive and put a tourniquet on my arm. The most terrifying part of the memories is constantly remembering my gunner screaming and then looking down and realizing my arm was nothing more than some ragged meat and two bones sticking out."

"I spend a lot of time crying and I don't know why. Sometimes I look at my hand or I look at my arm and I just start crying. I think of when my hand used to be there, or when my arm used to be there, and what it was like. The arm that was there for the last 27 years is suddenly gone. All the little blemishes, all the little battle wounds, all the little scars from being a carpenter, everything is gone. The ring finger that held my wedding ring that was put on by my loving wife is gone. The last time I saw my wedding ring it was being snipped off with a pair of bolt cutters at the hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad. It was also here in the Green zone that I also got to look at my arm and see that it had been sheared off by shrapnel. It was a gruesome sight, but I couldn't help but look. It's an image that will forever be burned in my mind. Sometimes the loss feels overwhelming for me and I just start crying. Other times I'm very positive and look forward to getting out of here and getting on with my life. Other times I just don't know what to think."

The parts that really hit me are where he talks about looking down at his arm and realizing that it's gone and where he talks about the scars, blemishes, etc. just don't exist anymore.

Obviously, things could have been a lot worse for him, and he is well aware of that. Please check out his blog and read some of his entries. Also, click on the links on the right hand side under the "Navigate" heading. You can look at some photos of him modeling as well as competing in log rolling competitions. If you want to know more, just Google his name and plenty of websites will come up. And remember to keep J.R., his wife, Josie, and all of our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers. They are making some huge sacrifices for us.

The Entrepreneur

2006-12-10T20:26:00.000-06:00

That Catherine is quite a character. She's always looking for a new way to make a buck. However, as eager as she is to do something to make money, she is rarely willing to actually work for it. She's not interested in doing chores around the house to help me out. No, she'd rather just have someone give her something for...pretty much nothing.

An example. About a year or so ago, we were visiting at my mom's house. My mom, Alex, and Catherine were looking at some Pokemon stuffed animals on the internet. Catherine found one she wanted that was $7. So her lazy, creative mind went to work. She walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed a bunch of bananas that were sitting there. She offered to sell them to my mom for $7. Hey, she saw something she wanted and found a way to get it! Well, actually she didn't get it. My mom refused her offer.

So the other night when I walked downstairs, I had to laugh. This is what I saw:

She had opened up a little "stand" where she was charging a nickel to pet her bunny. She made a sign that said, "Pet the bunny! 5 cents only. Really soft bunny. You'll love how soft the bunny is. You'll know what you payed for!"

I went back upstairs and got some nickels to contribute to the cause. Jason added more, and then even Alex gave her one.

I hope someday she is actually able to come up with a creative idea that can make her some real money. But first, I think she'll have to learn the important lesson that youth and cuteness will only get you so far. I just don't see a stunt like this working when she's 30.

I am old

2006-12-04T20:57:00.000-06:00

I turned on the Billboard Music Awards tonight, hoping to catch a couple of good performances. I had heard that Rascal Flatts, one of my favorite bands, was up for 5 or so awards, and also that Carrie Underwood was up for some as well.

I guess I've been spoiled by awards shows in the country music genre. The artists dress respectably. When they sing, you can understand what they're saying. During their performances, they don't have half-naked women gyrating all over the stage. Country artists are, for the most part, average, good, humble people. To me, that's the appeal. While I do like some other kinds of music, country is my favorite, and watching the Billboard Awards shows me why. I lost count of how many times I rolled my eyes while watching.

Shortly after I first tuned in, a group of 5 or so women and a man came out to present an award. I didn't catch who the group of women were or who the man was, but the women were skanky looking and dressed in what looked like negligees. Some of the negligees were really short and some were a bit longer, but all were skimpy, and the one woman in one of the longer negligees kept her hand right by her crotch the whole time, kind of pulling her dress back so she could show more leg.

If I remember correctly, they presented an award to some rapper guy whose name I can't remember, other than it was 2 initials, like J.T. or I.C. or something. Whatever. He came up on stage with his pants belted below his butt and his underwear hanging out. I can't stand that! (The "old" in me is starting to show now.)

After that, Gwen Stefani came out and shared the stage with some fake sheep and proceeded to yodel. Her outfit was interesting, but not completely outlandish. A bit later, Carmen Electra and Chris Kattan came out. Just watching her made me want to throw up. She kept tossing her hair around like the bimbo that she is. Then when Chris mentioned something about the sheep that were just on the stage, she actually asked him if he was going to hook up with one of them later! I think he was a little pissed off, and rightly so. What a moron!

As I was watching this horrible show, I knew that I was going to write a post about it, so I was kind of making mental notes about what I was going to mention. So when I heard that Courtney Love was going to be presenting the next award, I thought, "Jackpot! She'll be stoned out of her mind and I can totally trash her!" Even she disappointed me. She appeared to be completely sober and she didn't slur her words any more than any of the other idiots. What a letdown.

The one high point of the night was when Carrie Underwood won an award for Album of the Year. Unfortunately, Rascal Flatts didn't win the one award that was presented while I was watching. I don't know about the others that they were nominated for--I didn't catch the first part of the show. Somehow I feel confident that I didn't miss much.

I realize that it's only a matter of time until I'm yelling at my kids, or random kids at stop lights for that matter, to "turn that horrible music down!" That's fine with me. For the time being, it's my kids who are yelling at me to turn my country music down when we're in the van. But judging by the way they sing along, I don't think they really mind. And as long as I have control over the music they listen to, it will always be country music. I do have to admit though, that I find it very cute when Lauren asks me if I have any Metallica on my iPod. Jason is trying to corrupt her. I will prevail.

Eeeeeewwwwwwww! Part Deux

2006-11-09T23:32:00.000-06:00

Wow, what are the chances that I sit down to write this post and I'm going to talk about the same thing I talked about in my last post --exactly a month ago? Hopefully, I'll have something else to talk about next month.

I didn't go to work yesterday because I wasn't feeling well. I had a cough. Yeah, I know--wah. I'm usually not that wimpy, but hear me out.

I had gone to bed late the night before, and then had trouble falling asleep because of all the coughing. I got up about 2am and did what I knew I shouldn't. I took some NyQuil. I love that stuff. I had planned on only taking a 1/2 dose or so, because it was already so late, but it was the end of the bottle, so I just drank it all down. Hmmm...that makes it sound like I was standing in my kitchen drinking straight from the bottle. Not so, I drank from the little cup thing.

After that, I slept like a dead person. So much so, that I got up too late to shower before I took Alex to school early for band practice. So when I got back from school, I laid down for "just a minute" before I got into the shower. A little bit later, Jason asked, "are you going to work?" "Yeah," I said, and had every intention of doing so. When I woke up at 9:30, I figured it was probably time to call in to work. Not gonna make it after all.

I fell asleep again, and must have slept until noon or so, when I got up and had a bowl of Colossal Crunch, the poor man's version of Cap'n Crunch. As soon as I was finished, I went back up to bed and slept until about 4:30 or so. And I only woke up then because Alex came in and said, "Mom, wake up. Dad needs you downstairs." My first thought was, "What the hell does he need that is so important that they woke me up when I'm not feeling well?" Then Alex informed me that the reason I was needed was that there was a mouse in his bedroom. "Inside your bedroom?" I wanted to clarify that this one was not outside in his window well. Yep, it was in his bedroom.

When I got down there, Jason had it cornered in an area where it was able to hide under a bunch of crap that Alex had laying around his bedroom. He was using a long, narrow cardboard box to move stuff around, and had a Lego box standing on its side, hoping that the mouse would run into it, and all would be well. I could see that that was not going to happen.

We have friends who have had a couple of mice in their house in the last month or two, and they used a plastic Tupperware-like container to trap it. I ran upstairs to get a disposable plastic bowl, hoping I could trap it under there. Jason didn't seem like he thought it would work, but I thought it was better than hoping that the stupid thing would run into a very narrow box.

I got down on my hands and knees in the area where we thought it was, and I moved the papers that Jason said it was hiding under. Yep, there it was! EEEEEEWWWWWWWW!!! The tough part at this point was that it was right up against the flat base of a coat rack, so when I tried to bring the plastic container down on top of the mouse, I couldn't actually trap him, because I couldn't get the container down flat on the carpet--I kept hitting the base of the coat rack.

So the mouse is running around in this area, and finally goes and hides under the bookcase nearby. Jason said he'd move the bookcase, as it's a pretty small one, but he'd have to be quick about it because I figure that at soon as the mouse's cover is gone, he's gonna bolt. He didn't even get the bookcase off the floor and the mouse ran out into as much of an open area as there is in Alex's room. Somewhere in the midst of taking the Lord's name in vain numerous times as well as using the "S-word," I managed to trap the little bastard under the little plastic container. Whew, the adrenaline was a'flowin'!

But the story doesn't end here. Oh no. I slipped a piece of cardboard under the container and flipped it over and put the lid on it. "Now what?" I asked Jason. He said we should just throw the whole thing in the garbage, because the next day was garbage day and we could just be rid of the whole thing. Alex said we should bring it to the park and release it like we did with the live mouse we found in his window well this summer. I told him that we weren't going to do that, it's no big deal to just throw it away. He started to cry.

"Fine. I'll take him there myself. I'll walk to the park," he said.

"Jason, will you take him to the park so he can let the damn thing go?" I asked. He just kind of rolled his eyes, but he didn't say no, so I told Alex that Dad would drive him to the park so he could do the humane thing and release him. Such a softie, but that's why we love him.

I've never found a live mouse in my house before. Let me tell ya, it was creepy. I was just so glad to have caught it. I don't think I could stand it if I knew it was running around the house somewhere.

But now the big question is: Is it better to find and catch a live mouse in your house, or to have the stench of a dead mouse in your house?

Eeeeeewwwwwwww!

2006-10-09T21:11:00.000-05:00

Tonight I took the leaf out of our dining room table and put it into the storage room in our basement. When I went down there, I thought, "Hmmm...something smells funny." I checked the laundry room to see if that smelled too. Nope. Whatever.

I went on my way and cleaned up the house and got Lauren ready for bed. When Jason and Alex got home from Cub Scouts, Alex went down to his room to put his Cub Scout book away. When he came back up, he mentioned that it really stunk down there, and did he have to sleep down there tonight?

So Jason headed down there to investigate. We noticed that the smell got stronger once we entered Alex's room. We looked around but didn't see the cause of the funky odor. I asked if he had eaten anything in there, and he said he hadn't.

Then we remembered back to this summer when we found a mouse running around in his window well. I fished it out and the kids and I went to a park and released it. No big deal. It crossed our minds now that maybe another mouse didn't fare so well.

Alex got the flashlight and we looked around but we didn't find anything out there. Jason decided that the way to figure out if there was something out there or not was to open the window and see if the smell got stronger. He opened it up, and for some reason, I was elected to stick my nose up to the screen and take a whiff. Whoooooooeeeeee! Yep, something was dead. I shut off the bedroom light and flashed the light around the window well again, and there it was. A dead mouse all curled up in a dead leaf.

Alex will be sleeping in the extra bedroom until the mouse is removed and the stench goes away.

Just for you, SoozieQ!

2006-09-30T19:05:00.000-05:00

For 4 days this past week, I was in Las Vegas for work. One evening after training was finished, a bunch of us were walking down The Strip, and I saw this and thought of SoozieQ.

I did not, however, venture in. I had just bought a bunch of (probably) inferior products at Bath & Body Works before my trip, and I didn't feel the need to spend more money. But I couldn't just walk past without snapping a picture and bowing down in respect. Actually, I've never been in one before at all, but Soozie speaks so highly of it, that it's got to be great! I think there's one at the Mall of America. I should check it out, no?

JP, I also thought of you in Vegas when I saw a Callaway Golf store. But I saw it on the trip to the hotel from the airport, and I didn't have my camera handy. Sorry.

Oh, Soozie, before I forget-- I did have a lemon drop martini while I was there. I didn't see your warning in Sharkey's comments until I got back. Too little too late, I guess.

Anyway, my friend and I went to a bar area of the Monte Carlo, where we were staying, and took a seat in front of a couple of video poker games. We sat and sat and sat, until finally I made eye contact with the one bartender, and just kept staring at him. There were only 3 or 4 others at the bar, so we weren't sure why we were being ignored. We didn't think we looked that bad! As it turns out, I think the guy was ignoring us because he didn't know how to make drinks. Yes, a bartender that ignores his customers because he doesn't know how to make drinks.

Our first clue was that he kept walking and walking around the bar, first looking for glasses. Then he made a few more laps, I think looking for a recipe to fall from the sky. Then he finally went over and asked another bartender some questions, came back, walked around some more, and then finally handed us the drinks. He apologized for the small glasses that he put them in, and then left us the little shaker thingy that he made the drinks in, so that we could help ourselves to the leftovers that wouldn't fit into our glasses.

Whoa, that was one strong drink! Tasty, but strong. I could feel it hit me before I even stood up to go.

Here's the view from my hotel room.

We had a great time while we were there, but man, was it good to come home! Four days away from my family was maybe a day too long. But look at what I saw when I looked out the patio door to our backyard. This is why I love Minnesota in the Fall.

Actually, this picture with my cheap-o camera doesn't even do it justice. It is so bright and beautiful, that I don't want the leaves to fall off! However, I have been through thirty-something winters, and I know that it's inevitable, and it's only a matter of time before the snow flies.

Sidenote: When I did a spell-check, I was prompted to replace "SoozieQ" with "cookies" and "Soozie" with "socio." Don't worry, Soozie. The cookies would have to be really good for them to replace you.

New haircuts for everyone!

2006-08-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

The kids were getting a little shaggy, so we headed out to Great Clips tonight. I planned to just have Alex and Catherine get trimmed, but Lauren begged to get hers cut too, so I gave in. She's almost 3 1/2, and she 's never really had a "real" haircut, just a little trim.

Here's Big Al. He has a habit of twisting his hair, so he doesn't like to get it cut. It makes it too hard to twist. I think he looks great, though.

Catherine decided that she wanted to go a little shorter than usual. I think it turned out great, and she looks adorable. She's getting so big!

Lauren's haircut is not quite as obvious as Alex and Catherine's. I had the lady take a couple of inches off, and she just kind of evened it out.

When we got home, they were all on a sugar high from the suckers they got at Great Clips, so they decided to pile on top of each other.

Please don't be jealous of our exciting Friday night. Your life can be this exciting too!

Blackmail

2006-08-10T08:30:00.000-05:00

Hallelujah!

2006-07-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

Guess whose air conditioning is fixed? Yup, ours. What a wonderful feeling, and wait till you hear the best part...

When we bought the house we currently live in, (we moved in a year ago tomorrow) we had a great realtor. He told us that if we ever need a handyman, a lawn guy, a furnace guy, etc. to call him because he has a lot of contacts. So I called our realtor first thing this morning to get the name and number of his A/C guy. Unfortunately, I had to leave a message, and then prayed that he would call back in a timely fashion. When it had been about an hour and a half and we hadn't heard from him, we decided that we needed to come up with another plan. Now, usually I would be more patient than that, but it's Friday and it was 95 degrees in our house. This was no time for patience. This was time for major crabbiness. The weekend is supposed to be even hotter.

Before we moved to Minneapolis, I worked for a plumbing and heating wholesale company. So I got on the phone and called my old boss and asked him if he knew of anyone I could call in our area, since he is originally from here. He didn't know anyone personally, but told me that he'd give me to the heating customer service guy there in the office, and maybe he could do some troubleshooting for me. Dennis (the heating dude) is a great guy. I sat about 5 feet away from him every day for 2 years. He's a lot of fun, and always enjoyed giving me no end of crap when we worked together. So he asked me questions and had me try a few things, and nothing was making a difference. It all boiled down to 2 possibilities: it was either the capacitor or the compressor. He said if it was the capacitor, it would probably be a relatively cheap fix and we might even be able to do it ourselves. If it was the compressor, he said we might as well buy a whole new unit, by the time we pay for parts and labor. I was obviously hoping for the cheap fix here, since Jason and I had already decided that if it was the compressor or we needed a whole new unit, that we would have to suffer without A/C for the rest of the summer. We just can't afford it.

Dennis told me on the phone all about the capacitor--what it looked like, how to disconnect it, not to touch the contacts unless we wanted to get knocked on our asses. As he's telling me all of this, I'm thinking, "This is a waste of his breath. There's no way that Jason is going to agree to dig inside the A/C unit and try to disassemble something." But instead, he was gung-ho to do it, because, really, what other choice did we have a that point?

Jason found the capacitor and disconnected it. I was pretty excited by that alone! Then, at Dennis' suggestion, we brought it to Home Depot to see if they had the part we needed. The very nice employee told us that they don't carry that kind of part, but told us about a place in the next town that does. We went home and looked the place up on the internet so that we could at least find out if they carried it and if it was in stock. I gave him the numbers off of the old capacitor, and yes indeed, they carry it and it was in stock. At this point, I realize that it's all going too well. We're going to get the part home, hook it up, only to find out that that was not the problem after all. I tried really hard not to get my hopes up when the guy told me that the part sells for $24.95. That would be too good to be true!

Jason and Alex hopped in the van right away and headed to the store. They couldn't take Jason's car because, um, the A/C doesn't work. Anyway, when they returned home, Jason told me that when the guy saw our used capacitor, he said, "Wow! That thing is blown!" Again, I tried not to pin all my hopes on this little part that is the size of a small V-8 can.

Jason went outside and hooked it up, and then yelled to me to turn the power back on and then turn the A/C on. This is when the angels began to sing. It worked!!! Our air conditioning was fixed! By us!! For $25!!! I wanted to dance a happy jig. I shall never take air conditioning for granted again. Until about two days from now when I forget all about this.

Hotter than Hades

2006-07-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

Guess whose A/C broke? Yup, when I got home from work yesterday, the thermostat in our house read 90 degrees. I was not a happy camper! Then Jason went outside to take a look at the A/C unit itself, and thought he figured out what the problem was. There was a box on the house by the unit that had a couple of red lights lit up, and underneath the lights was a sticker that told us that if the red lights were on, then it meant that our electric company had put us into the mode where they cycle the A/C on and off to conserve energy. Once we figured that out, I was relieved, thinking that was the only problem. However, it did not come back on in any resemblance of a timely manner. It was still out when we went to bed last night. Luckily, it cooled off pretty nicely, and we didn't melt during the night. When I left for work this morning, it still wasn't working, so then I was getting pissed. But then Jason called me before he left for work, and said that it seemed to be working fine. Whew! I was very relieved. But then when I got home from work today, it was 90 degrees in the house again! I called the electric company, and the lady explained that, yes, they are cycling the A/C on and off, but that it only goes in 15 minute increments, so we shouldn't even really notice it. Hmmm...not sounding good. While Jason was at work tonight, I had a friend come over and take a look at it. He had a couple of ideas of what it might be. No such luck. Nothing he tried worked. So now I'm thinking that we may be in trouble. Why couldn't this have happened on a Monday? Tomorrow is Friday, so something needs to be done right away or we're gonna be in trouble. Either we'll have to have someone come out over the weekend and we'll pay through the nose (which we can't afford), or we'll have to suffer through the weekend, with temperatures at or over 100 degrees, with horrible humidity. If we do the latter, I'm guessing we'll be hanging out at the Mall of America or something for a good share of the weekend. Ugh. This stinks! I guess we could go to the pool, but the thought of everybody else and their brother being there with us is not very appealing. I'm totally grasping at straws here, but I'm hoping that the cycling on and off of the A/C blew some sort of fuse or something. But when I'm more realistic, I remind myself that the A/C was new with the house in 1991. Not exactly still under warranty.

Ooh...I just talked to our next door neighbor. She stopped over to see if we had enough fans to get us by. That was nice of her! Anyway, she said that she thought that the A/C was not original with the house, but that the people who lived here before us put it in more recently. I still don't know where that will get us, but it gives me a little more hope that maybe it's not completely shot. As you are all basking in the loveliness that is your air conditioned house this weekend, think of me and my family sweating our asses off!

On a happier note, look at the beautiful butterfly that I picked up at daycare this afternoon...

Keeping up with the Simpsons

2006-07-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

In the last year or so, Alex has acquired a few of the full season DVD's of The Simpsons. All three of the kids love it. Lauren, especially, wants to watch it all the time. Some people probably wouldn't approve of letting a 3-year-old watch The Simpsons, but I guess it's not a big deal for us. We are careful with what they watch on TV, making sure that it's nothing too scary and we try to limit the number of naked people that they see, but we do allow things like The Simpsons that may not always be completely appropriate. (Catherine LOVED James Bond movies when she was two years old. The more things that blew up, the harder she would laugh!) Every once in a while Bart will say something that makes me cringe and I try to sneak a look at the kids to see what their reaction will be. Usually, it seems to go right over their heads.

Have you ever seen the episode where Bart and Lisa are in Sunday School, and they are learning about Hell? Bart sees this as his chance to say "hell" without getting into trouble. After all, he learned all about hell in his Sunday School class! So as they are all driving home after church, Bart is sitting in the backseat, singing, "Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell..." until Marge yells, "Bart! Stop saying "hell," you're not in Sunday School anymore!" It's a funny episode.

Last night, Jason, Lauren and I were driving home from my Grandma's birthday party. (Alex & Catherine stayed with my Dad & Step-mom so they could go to a baseball game tonight.) So we're driving home, and out of nowhere, Lauren starts singing, "Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell..." Jason and I exchanged glances and tried to contain our laughter. We didn't say anything to her because we didn't really even want to acknowledge it and make her think that it was funny or naughty or anything. We just ignored her and she stopped after a few seconds. Kids are so funny. You just never know what they hear and what they understand. They're just little parrots.

**************************************************************************************

On a different, yet similar note, this morning I told Lauren to get dressed, and she responded with, "OK, whatever you say, Lady!" She is somethin' else.

Out of the mouths of babes

2006-07-19T21:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight, Jason and I were sitting in the living room while the kids picked up tremendous amounts of their junk off the coffee table and floor. They would take a few items to their bedroom or the garbage, and then come back for more. Lauren and Alex had both taken some things downstairs, but only Lauren returned. Jason asked Lauren, "Where's Alex?" In the most nonchalant voice ever, she responded, "He's dead."

Wha? Where did that come from? Clearly, it was not true. Where do they get things like that? She gave me a sly little smile, knowing that she had just made a "joke." Not a hilarious one, mind you, but she was pretty proud of herself . Truth be told, Jason and I did get a little chuckle out of it as well.

I can't wait until school starts!

2006-07-14T21:45:00.000-05:00

Come September, Alex will be in 5th grade, and Catherine in 2nd. He'll be 11 in November and she's 7. Jason and I have always looked forward to the day that the two of them would be old enough to stay by themselves before and/or after school, and we've decided that day will coincide with the start of the coming school year. Of course, you know what that means, don't you? NO MORE DAYCARE EXPENSES FOR THEM!!! Yay!!! Right now, during the summer, we're paying $150 per week for the two of them to go to an in-home daycare. Even with my crappy math skills, I can figure out that we will be saving $600 per month!!! Did you hear me? Six Hundred Dollars! Each month! We might actually be able to afford things--like groceries and the utility bills! However, since I have come to this realization, I do need to keep reminding myself that the $600 a month savings has not yet begun. Like when I'm at Target and things keep trying to jump into my cart without my permission. Sometimes it's just easier to leave them in the cart and then bring them home, rather than cause a scene and try to put them back on the shelf.

Also, my '98 minivan has over 146,000 miles on it. I plan to drive it till it dies, so it's not like I'm going to run out and get a new one. But this extra money each month means that if my van dies suddenly, we wouldn't need to sell the house and live in the new van that I would be forced to go out and buy. If nothing else, it's just the peace of mind that the extra money will bring.

Speaking of peace of mind, I am totally confident in the kids' ability to handle being by themselves for a little while. Let me rephrase that. I am totally confident in the kids' ability to handle being by themselves after school. I'm pretty sure that we can't expect them to get out the door in the morning by themselves. These two are the pokiest kids on earth. You know how Winnie the Pooh's friend, Eeyore, sounds when he talks? Picture my kids moving to the tempo of his voice. Then slow it down even more.

At first, I was thinking that if I could get them totally ready before I had to leave for work--get them dressed, breakfast, make sure backpacks were packed, etc.--that maybe I could set a timer or something, and when it goes off, have them head out the door. But I know them better than that, and I know they'd end up being tardy a good 2 days a week. Then I realized that things were really coming together, and that this whole thing was really meant to be. My office, which is located in downtown Minneapolis, is moving to a suburb that is closer to my house. So beginning in August, my commute is going to go from a good 45 minutes to about 15 minutes. WooHoo! So it shouldn't be any problem for me to hang out at the house with them until they need to leave for school, and I could even give them a ride on rainy or really cold winter days.

Of course, we will still have the expense of Lauren's daycare, but who cares? She's only 3, it's not like leaving her at home is an option. We'll wait until she's at least 4.

Clearly, I have no life

2006-07-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

We watered the front lawn the other night, and after I rolled the hose back up, this is what was left on the sidewalk. Don't you think it looks like Texas? I know, I know. Next I'll be posting a picture of a piece of toast with Jesus' face on it!

Happy Anniversary, JP!

2006-07-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

A year ago tonight, JP's world changed. This is the anniversary of the last time he ate at Taco Bell.

Why do I remember this, you may ask? Well, it's more that I remember that tomorrow is my cousin's first wedding anniversary. She was getting married in Milwaukee, so Jason and I packed the kids up and headed out for the 5 or so hour drive. Sharkey and JP had flown into Chicago a day or two earlier and spent time with some friends, and then they drove up from there. We had booked a 2 room suite, and the 7 of us all stayed in it. Sharkey and JP got there before us and got checked in and settled in a bit. After we got there and got all the greetings out of the way, Sharkey and JP decided that a bite of Taco Bell was in order, and asked if we were interested. Jason said he'd eat something, so, if I remember right, JP and Jason headed across the street and picked it up. I don't remember what everyone had to eat, but I know that Sharkey and Jason ate the same thing, and JP had something different from them. It was pretty late at this point, so we got the kids tucked in, and then we all said goodnight as well.

The next morning, JP wasn't feeling so hot. I think the kids and I had been down at the hotel pool, and when we returned to the room to get ready for the wedding, Sharkey said that JP must have had food poisoning or something, because he was really sick. You know, when you're sick you just want to be in misery in your own home and in your own bed and have sole access to your own bathroom. Poor JP was in a hotel room that he was sharing with his wife and 5 other people! He was sick all day long and into the evening. Obviously, he did not attend the wedding, much to Jason's disappointment. He was feeling better in the morning though, so at least he didn't have to get on a plane back to Philadelphia feeling really crappy.

So that's the story of JP's last trip to Taco Bell. I know it's a shitty story, but someone had to tell it! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) :)

I don't think she's feeling very independent today

2006-07-04T09:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I got an email from a friend who is pregnant. We met when we had the same home daycare provider where we lived before we moved to Minneapolis last summer. Her daughter is 3, the same age as Lauren, so they played a lot together. Also, they beat the crap out of each other. Almost every day, the daycare lady would have a story about how, one minute Lauren and N. would be beating on each other, and the next minute, they were playing together like nothing had happened--like sisters, she would always say. One day, Lauren got mad at N. for some reason and knocked her down in the sandbox and then sat on her head. The daycare lady said she had to hide her laughter as she broke up the fight. (The daycare lady has been doing daycare for over 20 years, so she is very laid back!) I was always worried that N.'s parents would be mad about what Lauren did to their daughter, being that she was their first and only child at the time. But since N. was just as guilty as Lauren, I don't think they ever held it against either of us, which I appreciate. The girls had both been in that daycare since they were infants, so they played together almost everyday for about 2 years. When we moved, they missed each other, and N.'s mom and I were sad that they weren't going to grow up together, as we thought they were going to. So, back to her email. Here is what she had to say:

I thought I'd fill you in on what's going on, in case you haven't yet heard. On Friday I had some minor symptoms of this whole placenta previa pregnancy situation and underwent a bunch of tests and exams. At first I was admitted on a 23 hour hold to get 2 does of steroids for the baby's lungs over 24 hours, then it turned into 'maybe' you can go home tomorrow, then it turned into the high risk consultant saying, we think you should stay for the duration. So...

I am hospitalized for the duration. The hope is I can still make it until July 20th scheduled c-section date, which would have baby girl delivered at 35 weeks 5 days. After that point the risks outweigh the benefits of letting the pregnancy progress any further. N. was born at 35 weeks 4 days, so the situation will likely be similar, with baby staying for 1-2weeks in the level 2 nursery. I just hope and pray that baby doesn't come sooner, as then she'd have to go to the NICU at another hospital while I had to stay here to recover, that would be no fun...

Anyway, thanks to a friend loaning me her laptop, I now have internet access right in my room and after only 3 days here I have already completed 2 books and am into my 3rd, have watched enough TV to last me a lifetime, and have done enough Sudoku puzzles to make my brain spin. I mostly feel fine, have some contractions and very minor bleeding that puts a halt to my day keeping me monitored etc, but otherwise I am allowed to be out of bed, around my room and the floor if all looks good.

N. is very confused and asks me daily if I have to stay at the hospital 'forever'. I really wanted these last few weeks to cherish the short time left we have with N. as our only baby, but now it is a little bit more difficult. Tim is thrown into doing it all with N., cooking, groceries, house stuff, daycare, Copper, AND finding time to come up and bring N. to the hospital to visit. A lot of pressure and responsibility... N. loves the hospital bed 'buttons' turning lights on and off and raising and lowering the bed, as well as watching movies (the hospital has on demand free movies) and N. is enjoying the food mommy gets to order (the hospital has room service). She asks me constantly what the baby is saying or how she's doing. She loves seeing the other new babies up on this maternity floor... she makes inquiries to where I am (usually during her bedtime routine or first thing in the morning) and misses dancing as 'a whole family' when we have her lullaby music on and read books before bedtime...which makes me feel sad for her. She asks each night before they leave if I'll be 'lonely' here by myself, which brings tears to my eyes, but I ensure her I am in good hands...

Anyway. I just wanted to let you know the latest. Thanks to all of you for your support with books, magazines, the laptop, phonecalls, e-mails etc etc. I would MUCH appreciate continued e-mails as the next month may feel awful long (especially how long the last 3 days have felt). Please also give support to Tim in anyway you can. I know so many have offered to watch N. here and there which will be a savior to his sanity, just to get out and mow the lawn or to come up to the hospital without her on occasion. He's the one who will need the break, I'm just bored :)... Keep us in your prayers that we make it until July 20th and baby girl is healthy and thriving.

She's had a miscarriage in the past, and this pregnancy started out as twins, but she lost one early on. I'm trying to figure out what I can do for her to help out, but being over an hour away limits things. I can't just swing by and pick up N. for the night--she wouldn't even remember who we are. I want to send her something to pass the time while she is in the hospital, and I'm open to ideas. Clearly she's got books, etc. to keep her busy, but what can I send that's original and that she'll really appreciate and be able to use while she's in the hospital? I really feel for her and her family, being separated during this last month of her pregnancy. I just hope all continues to go well, and the baby remains healthy. Please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers, and let me know if you have any good ideas for what I can send!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

What a busy day I've had!

2006-06-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

Wow, I came really close to over-doing it today. Let me tell you how my day went.

I got up around 8am because that's when the NyQuil wore off and I started hacking up a lung. I got out of bed and went downstairs right away so Jason could keep sleeping. I didn't want him to think there was an earthquake or something by the way the bed was shaking from all the coughing. So I got a drink of water, and then Lauren woke up right after that, so we decided to have some breakfast. After slaving over the cold cereal, we turned on some cartoons. At 9am, I decided to head back up to bed for a while. So I slept for a little while longer, until, oh, 1pm or so. I can't believe I slept that long! But with being sick and everything, I haven't had a decent night's sleep in over a week, so I deserved it, right? Right! At that point, I decided it was time for a shower. So I got all that out of the way, and then I laid around again for a while. Maybe the shower wore me out or something. By this time, it was 3pm-ish, and we had to run out to get a birthday present for a friend of Alex's who's having a party tomorrow. I also wanted to check into getting safety bed rails for Lauren, because she fell out of bed not once, but two times last night, contributing to my crappy night's sleep.

On the way home from Toys R Us, we stopped at JP's favorite place, Taco Bell. With the high activity level of the day, I just didn't feel like I had the energy to make the kids dinner. Either that, or there was no food at home, and the kitchen was such a pit that I couldn't have made dinner in there if I had wanted to. I'm not sure which it was. After dinner, the kids and I sat on the couch and stared at each other for a while. Then I decided it was probably time to try to get the safety rails installed on Lauren's bed, so we wouldn't have a repeat of last night.

These safety rails should not have been difficult to install, and really they weren't. But you know how, when you're doing something you've never done before and you're trying to make sense of the directions, you usually end up making things harder than they should be? Yeah, that's me. The rails expand in height and length from the way they're packed in the box, and I couldn't get them to lock into place. I wonder how many times I mumbled, "Piece of sh*#!" Probably too many, considering what a small project this was. Well, I got it all in place, and she was very excited to jump in when I was finished.

You may be wondering why there is a safety rail next to the wall. Won't the wall act as a safety rail? Yes, I suppose it would, if I planned to keep the bed there. But I would like to rearrange her room, hopefully tomorrow. Jason and Sharkey just set the bed up where the crib had been, so things are kind of packed in there. Maybe I should say that Jason set it up there--Sharkey suggested rearranging right then and there, but Jason opted for the easy way. On the left side of the picture, you can see that the door won't even open all the way, it bangs into the footboard. I plan to move the bed to where the dresser currently is, and then put the dresser on the wall where the bed is now. So you can see the need for the double safety rails. No more kids going "thud" in the night. Or "thud. thud" in Lauren's case. Everbody wins!

I hope tomorrow isn't as physically draining as today was!

A bunch of sickos

2006-06-21T22:43:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm bad with this blogging thing. I haven't posted anything in almost a month! It just seems that I'm not on the computer at home as much lately. I still find time to check everyone else's, but I just don't take the time to try to think of something worthwhile to post. Now don't get me wrong--I'm not saying that this post is going to be worthwhile, but I think you probably know what I mean.

Well, Sharkey & JP's visit to Minnesota has come and gone. It was great to see them again. The last time I saw them was when they were here for Christmas, so it's been a while. I feel bad that we've only been out to their house in Pennsylvania once since they moved out there in 2000, but 5 plane tickets ain't cheap! Anyway, it seems like every time they come here to visit, one of my kids is sick, and then Sharkey and/or JP inevitably ends up catching whatever bug the kids had. As the time drew near for them to arrive here, I began to wonder not if someone would be sick, but more, which kid would it be, and what would they be sick with? I hate that. I always feel so responsible, but what are you gonna do? Kids get sick and germs get passed on. That's life. This time, Lauren decided to step up to the plate by coming down with a case of pink eye. It wasn't pretty. Luckily, she had been on her medication for almost 24 hours before they got here, so she wasn't contagious anymore. To be completely honest, I was a little glad that Sharkey had a cold when she got here. Well, I'm not really glad that she had a cold, but just glad that my family was not responsible for giving it to her. As it turns out, I ended up getting a double whammy. I got Sharkey's cold Thursday-ish, and woke up in the middle of the night last night with my eye gooped shut. I know, it's a lovely visual. But not nearly as lovely as the real thing. My eyeball was completely red, any my eyelid was puffy and half swollen shut. I kind of lucked out a little bit though, because I didn't actually have to go in to the doctor's office. I just called the clinic and told them that I woke up this morning with pink eye, and that I knew for sure that's what it is, because my daughter just had it last week. They cut me some slack and just called in a prescription for me, saving me time and 20 bucks. My eye is still a little itchy, but I'm hoping that it'll mostly be healed by tomorrow morning so that my co-workers aren't afraid to look me in the eye.

New Things

2006-05-31T18:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a post I started on May 31, and just tonight, June 11, I finally got around to finishing it.

I'm all about the little things in life. Good thing, since I can't afford most of the big things. In the last few days, I've acquired a few new things that I'm kind of excited about. By the end of this post, everyone will know what a sad little life I live.

The other night I went to Kohl's to use the gift card my mom and step-dad gave me for my birthday. Actually, I went to Kohl's right after I got it in April and intended to use it, but decided to open up a Kohl's charge instead, thereby saving myself 15%!!! So anyway, I had this gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so off I went. First of all, just let me say, "What happened to Kohl's?" The place was trashed! The dressing rooms were loaded with all the things that other women tried on and did not like. I mean loaded! There wasn't even anywhere to hang the things that I brought in! And the rack that they keep outside the dressing rooms to put unwanted items had crap totally heaped on top of it. I wasn't impressed at all. And even before I went into the dressing room, I was really disappointed in their selection of shorts. (The main thing I was looking for on this trip was shorts.) There were some here and there, mostly in sizes 4 and 16, of which I am neither. The racks were practically bare! I found a few pair in my size to try on, so I waded through the dressing rooms and had at it. I think I tried on 3 or 4 pair and was really only happy about one of them. Typical woman, huh? Oh, I forgot to mention that when I got into the parking lot, I searched through my purse for the gift card and it wasn't in there. I only had a merchandise credit for $17.40 for something that I returned a couple of months ago, so I had to be careful about how much I spent. In other words, 1 pair of shorts was my limit. So I found a pair that I could live with for $17.99. I only had to dole out $0.59 of my own money. Woohoo! I wore my new shorts the next day while I was vacuuming out my van. As I'm vacuuming, I came across a metal button that said "Lee" on it. Hmmm...wonder what that's from. Oh well, whatever it was is probably long gone. I threw it away. All of a sudden it hit me--my new shorts are Lee's. I looked down and the waistband was fine, but one of the pockets on the side was missing the button, so I had to fish it out of the garbage. The bright side here is that I could still locate the receipt since I had owned the shorts less than 24 hours. I guess if it's gonna happen, sooner is better. Later that night, I headed back to Kohl's to try again. I knew that I wasn't going to find the same pair in the same size since the selection had been minimal the night before. I had found my gift card on the kitchen counter before I left, so this trip was going to be a little more fun. I fully expected the dressing rooms to have been shoveled out, and just assumed that they had just been short-staffed the night before. Wrong. What a pit! If I wanted to try on clothes surrounded by mounds of other clothes, I'd do it in my own bedroom! I found a very comfy pair of shorts, and let me tell you that when I wear them, I can hardly tell that I have them on. They're so comfy and stretchy! They're similar to these, but mine are khaki and don't have the pocket on the side. Love them. I also bought a couple of shirts and the sandals pictured below. Cute, huh? And I even ended up with $10 left over! Hopefully the next time I go back, the place won't look like a tornado went through it.

Another little goodie that I've accumulated lately is Dove Energy Glow lotion with self-tanners in it. I just bought it last night and used it this morning, and already I think I can see a difference. As I was putting it on this morning, I was thinking that it smelled pretty good. Later in the day, I started to smell a little more like I'd been in a tanning bed or something, but it's not too bad. I've never used a tanning lotion before, so I'm not sure if they all smell like that or not. It was a little expensive at $6.49 for an 8oz. or so bottle, but if it works, I'm all for it. So as I look down at my arms, it's not totally obvious that my skin hasn't seen sunlight since last August.

In addition to these things, I also got some new blush, nail polish, regular lotion, and some Veet hair remover so I don't have to shave everyday. I'm a little afraid of that one. I'll let you know if it burns my legs beyond recognition. In a nutshell, it makes me happy to buy things, even if they're small and mostly insignificant. Imagine how ecstatic I would be if I could actually afford some of the finer things in life!

Oh yeah, THAT'S where I put it

2006-05-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

Do you ever misplace something and wonder where the heck you've put it? I don't mean like your car keys or an important paper that you need. I mean something that always belongs in and stays in one room of the house. For instance, for the last couple of months, I have been wondering where my 1 Cup measuring cup has gone. At first, I assumed that Jason simply put it somewhere that it didn't belong, and I'd eventually find it. I had looked pretty much everywhere I thought he might put it, with no luck. One day I finally asked him if he has seen it. He said that he'd been wondering where it was too. Hmmm...strange. Well, whatever. We have another one that I don't like as well, but 1 cup is 1 cup, right? Fast forward to yesterday. Lauren was visiting her new favorite place since potty-training--the bathroom. She usually uses the big potty, but at this particular time, it was in use by another family member, so she used her little potty chair. You know, the kind where you take the little bucket out after using it, and dump it into the big potty. Here is a photo of it:

Cute, huh? So she did her thing, and when she finished, she took out the little bucket thing to dump, and this is what I saw.

Oh yeah. Now I remember! I left it in Lauren's little potty chair! How silly of me not to remember putting it there. The barrette inside the measuring cup was Lauren's touch. I had not been looking for that. Next time I misplace something small, I know the first place I'm going to look.

On a separate note, I have a new "Laurenism." The other day, we were getting ready to walk out the door to go to daycare/work, when Lauren was giving Alex a hug. She pulled away from him for a second and sneezed a couple or 17 times. (She takes after her Aunt Sharkey. Neither one of them sneezes a normal number of times. It'll more likely end up being at least 8 times--no kidding.) Anyway, she was using her best manners and covered her mouth while she sneezed. When she was done, she said, "Ooh, I snoozed on my hand!"

I think she was looking for the past tense of "sneeze," and it came out "snoozed." So of course, that's what we say now when someone sneezes.

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

2006-05-05T22:24:00.000-05:00

As I was clicking around the internet tonight, I decided to check out the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I came across this article, and was flabbergasted by the size of the shoes and the difference in the size of the men. The photo looks like it was Photoshopped or something. I've actually seen this guy in Rochester--in Wal-Mart, I think. You don't mistake this man for someone else. It's the type of situation where you know that it's rude to stare, but man! The dude's huge! And not just his body, but his head alone must weigh 20 pounds! I bet he's grateful for this shoemaker!

*********************************

In my last post, where I talked about the Kenny Rogers/Chris Cagle concert that I had tickets to, I forgot to mention a funny little tidbit. You know the Kenny Rogers song called "Lucille?" That line that goes:

You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille
With four hungry children and a crop in the field

Replace "four hungry children" with "four hundred children," and that is what I thought the line was when I was a kid. No wonder she left him.

Will wonders never cease?

2006-05-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

So a couple of amazing things have happened around here lately. The first thing, I thought I had no chance in hell of having it happen, and the second thing, well, I thought there was no chance in hell of having that happen either.

About a month ago, I got an email from K102, the country radio station that I listen to out of Minneapolis. It was an email letting me know that there was a concert coming up that I was eligible to get tickets for-- earlier than the general public, because I'm a member of the K102 Country Club. WooHoo--it was one of my very favorite singers, Chris Cagle!!! He was going to be Kenny Rogers' opening act at Grand Casino in Hinckley, MN. I love love love Chris Cagle, and even Jason says he puts on an awesome live show, even though he (Jason) could take or leave country music. So the tickets were going to be available at 10am on this particular day. So, here I am, at work on that day, 9:58am, and I'm checking my Ticketmaster account to make sure they have my updated address and my correct credit card number, and I'm just ready to spring into action, with my fingers poised over the keyboard, just waiting to be the first one to get the best seats in the house. So the time comes and I enter that I want 2 of the best seats available. They offer me a couple, and they're pretty good. But it's 10am on the 1st day of the presale--I can do better than that! So I declined those seats and tried for 2 more. Crap! Those seats were worse than the ones they just offered me! I shouldn't have been so greedy, and just taken the first ones! So I try a few more times, and I come up with what I realize are the best seats that I'm gonna get, so I take them. They were in the 15th row of the center section. This is an outdoor concert that will go on rain or shine, and my seats are in a covered area. Works for me. The tickets were $35 each, which I didn't think was too bad. So I'm all excited that I've got my tickets and that it's a done deal. It's on my calendar, and I can't wait to see him again! Then about 2 weeks ago, I was listening to the radio, and I just happened to catch the tail end of the DJ talking about some concert tickets going on sale the coming weekend. I didn't catch what concert it was though, so I went to the K102 website to check out the upcoming concerts to see who it was. It was Brooks & Dunn coming to the Minnesota State Fair, but that's neither here nor there. What caught my attention was the entry on the website that said "Grand Casino-Hinckley presents Kenny Rogers with special guest Crystal Gayle." What? Huh? What the hell? So I checked the Grand Casino website, and that confirmed the change as well. So I called Grand Casino, hoping that it was all just a horrible misunderstanding. At that point, I was also thinking about the almost $90 that I paid for the tickets to this show that I no longer wanted to see. (Yes, the tickets were only $35 each, but Ticketmaster charges all sorts of "convenience fees," and my total ended up at like $89.75!) So the lady I talked to at Grand Casino said that, yes, Chris Cagle had to cancel for some medical reason and that the show was now going to include Crystal Gayle. CRAP!!! Now don't get me wrong, I like Crystal Gayle, and I remember many of her songs from when I was a kid. If I had brown eyes, they would have most definitely been blue at this point! (They are already blue, by the way.) The lady told me that I would have to take this up with Ticketmaster because that's who I actually purchased the tickets through.

Immediately, I thought that I might as well kiss my 90 bucks goodbye! There's no way that Ticketmaster will refund my money, just because an opening act changed. It's not even like the show was postponed or cancelled--just a change in the measly opening act. I called and talked to a very nice customer service representative who said she would have to check with her supervisor to see if my money could be refunded. After being on hold for what seemed like an eternity, she came back and said that since there were still tickets available for this concert, yes, they could give me a refund. Hallelujah!!! She kept me on the line while she went through the process of crediting my credit card. "Hmmm...it's not letting me do it," she said. That didn't sound good. Back on hold I went, as she checked with her supervisor once again. When she came back, she said that they needed to check the refund policy of the promotion company that booked the show. This is the point at which I felt that I was totally screwed. Now Ticketmaster has a scapegoat. "It's not US that can't give you your money back, it's THEM!" She told me that they couldn't reach this promotion company by phone, so they had to email them, and that they (Ticketmaster) would call me back within 48 to 72 hours. Feeling no confidence whatsoever, I thanked the lady and hung up.

About a week later, I thought, "Hmm...Ticketmaster never called me back--that's probably not a good sign." It was up to me to make the call. I pretty much got the same response...had to check with supervisor...yes, you'll get your money back...need to contact the promotion company...couldn't reach them by phone, had to send them an email...will call you back with an answer by the end of the day. This time they actually did call back, and miracle of miracles, they got the go-ahead to refund my money!!! Well, almost all of the money. Of course, they were not able to refund all the "convenience and processing fees" which came to about $7. At this point, I did not care in the least! I was just so grateful that they were going to give me most of the money, and not make me sit through Kenny Rogers and Crystal Gayle, as good as they may be. Turns out that Ticketmaster is not as evil as I always thought! Whew!

Wow, that took a lot longer to explain than I thought it would. On to the 2nd miracle that has taken place recently. Lauren is officially potty trained!!! Hooray for her and for us! Now we can take the fortune that we used to spend on diapers and Pull-Ups and buy, oh I don't know, groceries or something! She's been wearing Pull-Ups for quite a while now, and would tell me everyday, "Today I'm going to stay dry for you!" Yeah, right. Two minutes later, she would be wet. It is very frustrating, but the key is to not make a big deal out of it. That is really hard sometimes. So I'd had enough screwing around with the Pull-Ups, and went to Target to buy some "training pants." Basically, they are "big girl" underpants with a little extra absorbency so the "accidents" don't completely run down her legs. She did really well, and when she did pee in the underpants a little bit, she absolutely hated the feel of it and would cry and walk all stiff-legged to the bathroom. That part was kind of funny, and that's also how I knew that it was working. She did poop in the underpants on Saturday and Sunday, but was doing pretty good with the peeing.

All weekend, she kind of got treated like a dog, which, I think was kind of funny, and she really didn't seem to mind it. We got new furniture and a new rug in the living room last October, so I really didn't want her sitting on either of them with just her underpants on. It was too early to trust that she'd use the potty when she needed to. So if she was going to watch anything on TV, I laid out an old towel on the rug that I made her sit on, just in case. I can't believe that she actually stayed on it.

Monday morning when I brought her to daycare, all the teachers made a big deal out of the whole thing, and she was very excited, but she had yet to poop on the potty. I sent like 3 extra pair of underpants and regular pants, just in case. When I got there to pick her up, I wondered how many of the extras she had gone through during the day. Much to my surprise, she had on the originals! Yea!!! She has not had one accident since Sunday, and finally today, after holding it for two days, she pooped in the potty at daycare! Woohoo! People who don't have kids have no way to comprehend just how exciting this is. If only everyone could experience this kind of joy. I fully expect there to be accidents here and there, and we'll still keep her in a Pull-Up at night, but man, what a great, freeing feeling to be at this point with Lauren!

By the way, I realize that I started no less than 10 sentences with the word "so." So what? Make that 11.

We all survived!

2006-04-19T21:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it was a busy weekend, but we lived to tell about it. Here's a little recap of the weekend.

Saturday, (my birthday) I got up and gave Lauren a bath and got her dressed, etc. She got a manicure and everything! Then I started trying to get the house cleaned up and get all of our stuff packed up to stay overnight at the Grandparent's house. Packing is one of my most hated jobs. I was packing for the kids, Jason, and me. The weather had been nice, but what would it be like the next day? So for an overnight stay, I had to pack clothes for warm weather, as well as be prepared for cooler weather. I was trying to do all of this in a reasonable amount of time so that we could get to my Dad's house before midnight, and that can get a little stressful. The house was such a pit! It didn't help that Alex and Lauren brought their tea party inside when Lauren spotted a bug outside. She had her little plastic plateful of crackers that she kept dropping all over the wood floor, and then stepping in them. So I'm running through the house like a crazy person, and new messes are popping up all around me. I was so crabby! My poor kids. Catherine was smart and got out early. She was at her friend's house. Here's a picture of the tea party before it was crashed by the uninvited bug.

After we got on the road, I was able to calm down a bit and relax. We got down to my Dad's house, and right away, the kids spotted the plastic colored eggs all over the yard. So the Easter egg hunt ensued! They all had a great time. Before we got to my Dad's, we stopped to pick up my Grandparents and brought them along for the birthday celebrations. We had a great meal, and it was a beautiful day, so we spent a good portion of it outside.

Sunday was Easter, as well as Lauren's 3rd birthday, and we spent the day at my Mom's house. It rained and rained and rained, but we had a delicious meal, so who really cared? We did have to move the Easter egg hunt indoors, but it was a success anyway! Lauren opened her gifts, and was in heaven all day afterwards. Two words--Princess Dress.

The first thing she said when she opened it up was, "Where's my crown?" A true princess at heart. She wore it all day long, with the exception of mealtime. She was actually agreeable to taking it off to eat, because she didn't want to get it dirty. She got another Fairy Dress today from Sharkey & JP, along with a feather boa, but I need to exchange the dress, as it had a little rip in it. I'll be sure to post some pictures of it when I get a new one. The boa is too much!

So basically, we had a good weekend, happy birthdays were had by all, and we ate WAY too much! Easter candy, birthday cake, cupcakes, ice cream. No wonder I weighed 3 pounds more on Monday morning! Below is a picture of Catherine and some of the candy they got for Easter. This is only Alex & Catherine's share of it. Lauren's is still in another bag! The candy is in a HUGE Tupperware bowl, and I have to totally heap it on to fit it all in. There are like 12 Cadbury eggs in there calling my name. I'm trying really hard to tune them out. Wish me luck!

On a totally separate note, I have to tell about a cute thing that Lauren said tonight as I was putting her to bed. Tomorrow is Jason's day off, so he will keep Lauren home with him and they'll spend the day together. I told her, "Be good for Dad tomorrow!" She said, "I won't hit him, or kick him, or pinch him, or poke his eye!" What more can a parent ask for?

Hoppy Easter!

2006-04-14T15:23:00.000-05:00

Not only Happy Easter, but Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, and Happy Birthday! Wow, it's going to be a busy weekend! Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'll be 34 years old. For a couple of reasons, it really doesn't even seem like it's tomorrow already. The first reason is that I'm getting older, and birthdays just aren't the big deal that they used to be. The second reason being that the next day is Lauren's birthday. She was apparently hell-bent on not sharing with me, because 3 years ago when I was induced on my birthday at about 8am, nothing happened all day long. Most boring birthday ever! At 3:13am the next day, she finally decided we'd waited long enough, and made her first appearance. So because our birthdays are only a day apart, I'm thinking more about hers than mine, which, I would have to believe, is pretty typical for a mom.

On April 15, 2000, my 28th birthday, Sharkey and JP made it official. They had a beautiful wedding ceremony that we were all a part of. I was the Matron of Honor (I hate the word "matron", it makes me sound old and fat), Alex was the cutest ring bearer alive, and Jason was an usher. Catherine was just 13 months at the time, so her required part was to sit and be quiet during the ceremony. If I remember correctly, she took direction well. I wish I had a picture of Alex at the reception in digital form (or had a scanner that worked) because, let me tell you, that kid danced his butt off that night. I have a picture somewhere of him totally sweaty and red-faced and sucking down a Sprite that he had gotten from a newly made friend--a 60-ish lady who was a server there. She doted on him all night and kept bringing him whatever he wanted. By the end of the night, he was totally spent, but was ready to keep going anyway. I was holding him, and finally I said, "Alex, lay your head down on my shoulder." He laid it down, and was immediately O-U-T! Apparently, he thought he needed an invitation to stop moving and give in to the exhaustion. He got to be too heavy pretty quickly, so we set 2 chairs next to each other and laid him down on them so he could sleep more comfortably. He had a great night!

So anyway, that's what's going on this weekend, in addition to Easter. I'll leave you with a photo of the present that I got from some friends at work. They gave me all the crappy Easter candy that I love. It seems that all of the items in the basket are things that either you love or you hate, and I love them all. Peeps are best if you slash the wrapper and allow them to dry out overnight. Chewy and tough--that's how I like 'em. Cadbury Creme Eggs--YUM! (Spell-check wanted me to change "Cadbury" to "Cadaver"--Ewww!) There's also a bag of Brach's Chicks and Rabbits, which are like the orange Circus Peanuts that you can buy, except these are shaped like...well, you know, chicks and rabbits. There are also some Starburst jellybeans littered along the bottom of the basket. Who could ask for more?

People and their critters

2006-04-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or does this seem odd to anyone else?

And check out this cat. It looks like he's trying to give someone the finger.

A rabbit in a sweater. I just can't get over that one.

The 1st grill of the season

2006-04-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about living in Minnesota is enjoying the way the seasons change. Sometimes it takes a cold, crappy winter to appreciate the warm-ish weather that comes along in the spring. Yesterday was a beautiful day here. I'd say it got into the mid-50's, and it was sunny. The sun is the key factor here. When the weather starts to get nice like this, it automatically puts me in a good mood, the same way that the first snow of the season does. So anyway, it was beautiful outside, and we decided that it was time to bring the grill out of hibernation from the backyard shed.

We invited our friends and their 2 kids over for dinner, and then had cake and ice cream--an early birthday celebration for Lauren and me. My birthday is Saturday the 15th, and Lauren's is Sunday the 16th. Being that they fall on Easter weekend this year, we figured that if we were going to celebrate, it was now or never. The dinner was nothing fancy or exotic, but being that it was the first grill of the season, it was the best meal I'd had in a long long time. Burgers with the standard: cheese, ketchup, mustard, onions, pickles and tomatoes. We also had some yummy potato salad, fresh pineapple, strawberries, and grapes. Michelle and I shared a bottle of wine while the guys enjoyed their beer that had been shipped in from Germany. Let me tell ya, there is just nothing else like it. The leftover burgers that the kids and I had tonight were a yummy encore. But tell me, does the following story make me a bad mom?

There were 4 burgers left over from last night. Jason was at work this evening, so it was just me & the 3 kids for dinner. At first, I was just going to heat up 3 of the burgers--1 for each kid. They had all agreed earlier that leftovers sounded good. At the last minute, I decided to reheat all 4 of them, and I'd have one myself. When it came time to sit down and eat, I looked and saw that Alex had 2 buns laid out on his plate, and was happily decorating them with ketchup and mustard. (I think the kid is obsessed with money, as he had drawn a "$" in mustard on his bun.) Seeing that he had his eyes on 2 of the 4 burgers, I realized that I would not be having a burger at this meal. I said, "You're having 2 burgers, huh Al?" "Yep" was his reply. Oh well, I'll have cereal or something, I thought. Then Lauren started whining, "I don't want a burger!" I saw this as my opportunity. If she didn't want the one I made for her, I could make it my own! Now, I'm not a completely horrible parent, practically taking food from my kid's mouth. I did ask her 2 or 3 times after that, "Lauren, do you want a burger to eat or not?" Her response was "No" each time. Okay then. I ate the extra burger, and it might have been even better than it was last night, if that's possible. And what did Lauren end up eating? She was very happy with her potato salad, slice of tomato, and empty bun. Apparently they nicely complemented the 1/2 pound of purple grapes that she ate shortly before dinner. So, yes, she had a dinner that didn't have a ton of nutritional content, but I guess she's eaten worse. But I knew that if I forced a burger onto her plate, she'd eat 1 bite and the rest would go into the garbage. So to give her crap for dinner and eat her burger myself was really my only choice, right? Yeah, I think so too. And not only that, it did not end up being a big battle. So in a way, any points I might have lost for eating her dinner, I actually gained back by avoiding a power struggle. At least that's how I like to look at it.

It's been a while

2006-03-29T21:42:00.000-06:00

So it's been a while since I've posted. The reason is simply that I've been busy, but at the same time, I really don't have anything to report. Nothing eventful has happened lately, but I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. Here's a very boring report of what has been going on lately:

I was sick on Monday. It just came out of nowhere while I was in the shower. So I didn't go into work that day. I just slept and layed around. Not a bad deal, since I was feeling better around 11am.

We did our taxes. I hate Minnesota.

My 2 bosses are in Boulder, CO tomorrow and Friday for meetings, so guess who's taking both days off?!? Yep, me! Thursday, I'll send the kids to daycare and have the whole. darn. day. to myself!!! When is the last time this happened? I really can't remember back that far. There have been days where I've had a couple of hours to myself, but a whole day? What will I do with myself? The dilemma is this: Should I be productive and take advantage of the absence of the kids and get something done? Or should I just lay around and bask in the silence? What to do, what to do. Then Friday, I'll keep the kids home with me (they're on Spring Break). I'm not sure what exciting things we'll do. I was thinking that maybe I'll bring them to my office since they've never seen it. I know, it doesn't sound very exciting, and why would I want to go into the office on my day off? But I work on the 32nd floor in an office building in downtown Minneapolis, and I think they'd really get a kick out of seeing all the skyscrapers and the view from my office. Plus, it fits my budget.

I think the weather is supposed to be decent the next few days. Here in Minnesota, that means that it'll be around 50 degrees, and people will be outside without jackets. It's practically a heat wave!

Hopefully over the next few days, something exciting will happen, or maybe one of the kids will say something worth reporting. If that happens, you'll be the first to know.

This photo has nothing to do with today's post, but I just love the little feet in the cute, way-too-big sandals. What sweet feet!

Don't hurt yourselves

2006-03-21T20:34:00.000-06:00

There are a couple of ladies at work that, I feel, are in danger of hurting themselves. No, it's not depression that's getting to them, and they aren't going to hurt each other, either. I fear that they will get hurt patting themselves on the back.

In the last month or so, we have been working on 2 huge projects that have come in. It was a total of 47 new jobs that needed to be worked on. These 2 jobs overlapped by a week or so, and it got really crazy. It was a lot of work for both of them, anyone in the office would admit to that.

The thing that's driving me crazy is that they both keep talking about how many hours they put in yesterday, last week, in the last month. They come into my office and tell me. Then I hear them go to the next office and tell that person. Sometimes, I'm not sure who they're telling, but make no mistake, I can hear them telling someone about it. There have been a couple of days where I can hear one of them tell each person as they come in for the day. "I put in 30 hours over the weekend!" "I put in 51 hours last week, and I was off Thursday and Friday!" "I worked 80 hours last week!" Enough already! You know how sometimes, you tell a couple of people a story about something that happened to you, and then you realize that, since you've now repeated it a couple of times, it's probably time to shut up? I don't think they have this sense. I think they don't realize that because no one else talks about all the hours they work, that they're not actually doing it.

The other thing about this is that they are both such control freaks that they won't let anyone else help them with their workload. They have actually exchanged heated emails about stepping on each others toes, and trying to do too much of the other person's work. I think the only thing that is keeping me from throttling the two of them is that they're not complaining about the hours, it's more bragging that they've given so much of themselves. This led me to realize the reason that they keep announcing their late nights--they want to make sure that the bosses hear this because they're lookin' for a big fat bonus!

And the winner is...

2006-03-17T22:36:00.000-06:00

...Not Alex, unfortunately. Tonight was the Pinewood Derby, held annually by the Cub Scouts. Alex had fun watching his car do pretty well. I, on the other hand, thought it was excruciating. Jason had to work late tonight, so it was just me and the 3 kids. The Derby was scheduled to start at 6:30. Of course, when you get there, you need to register your car and you are assigned a number. Then you have to go and have your car weighed. It can weigh 5 ounces or less. We weighed Alex's car when it was completed, and it came in at exactly 5.0 ounces. When they weighed it tonight at registration, it was at 5.1 ounces. See, I knew it wasn't just me mysteriously putting on weight...even the car put on weight without an explanation! So, when the guy tells us that the car is too heavy, I was cursing Jason. Not because he was the one who put the weights on the car and weighed it, but because he was at work and I was the one who had to take a screwdriver and try to pry off a chunk of the weights. Actually, it ended up being quite easy, and it only took me a minute to do, so I guess I should just shut up about it. After that, it weighed in at a perfect 5.0.

After the whole registration thing is said and done, we sat and sat and sat and waited for the thing to get started. It was probably 7:15 before they had the first heat of cars ready to go. My only saving grace was that it was in a gym/cafeteria, so Lauren could run around and be loud if she wanted to. She also brought a couple of trains and a baby to keep her occupied. OK, so things finally get going, and it just keeps going and going and going. How many times do they need to run each car? Seriously, I think Alex's car ran about 8 or so heats. And there must have been at least 50 scouts with cars entered in the race. That's a lot of races! Then every once in a while, they would stop the race, and a den would do a skit. Hello? In the middle of racing? That's what all the other pack meetings are for. This is the Pinewood Derby. Then they went back to racing. Then a little bit later, a den leader got up and took the mic, and started announcing some awards that the scouts in her den were receiving. She might as well been speaking without the mic, because I couldn't make out a word she said. Back to racing. Then more announcements. More racing. Then a couple of jokes. I wanted to scream! By this time, Lauren was bored with her trains and her baby, and decided that the other side of the gym looked like more fun. So I'm off chasing her, while a bunch of other kids are apparently bored with the race too, and are running around at full speed. I just wanted to stick my foot out and trip them! (Is it horrible for a mom to say that about other people's kids?) By the time the event wound down, it was quarter to nine! People--I've got a 2-year-old who didn't take a nap at daycare today. I need to go home!!!

So anyway, back to Alex. Grandpa Frank helped him with his car this past Sunday. He cut the car out of the block of wood that it starts as, and sanded it as well. Then Alex did all the painting and designing. Jason then helped him nail the wheels in, and add the weights. Alex was really happy with how the car looked when he was finished. I have no idea what "place" Alex came in, other that it wasn't 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. He didn't care though. He got to have ice cream when he got home, and to him, that's the most important thing. Oh, and thank God he didn't place, because at the end, they mentioned something about tonight's winners moving on to a "District Race." I don't think I could take another night like this one.

You've come a long way, baby!

2006-03-16T22:14:00.000-06:00

Today was Catherine's 7th birthday, and she was so excited. Last night, as I was drying her hair after her shower, she sang "Happy Birthday" the whole time. Her excitement was contagious. The more she looked forward to the big day, I couldn't help but feel it myself. I really wanted her to have a great day, and I really think she did.

It started out at about 6:05am. She got up and came into our bedroom before her alarm even went off. That is unheard of. It usually takes quite a bit of poking, prodding, bribing, threatening, and yelling to get her butt out of bed, even when her alarm has been going off for 15 minutes. So we snuggled for a few minutes before I had to hop in the shower. When Alex came in the room a few minutes later, I heard her immediately say to him, "What's today?"

His answer: "Thursday."

"No, I mean what's special about today?"

"I don't know!!!"

"What special day is it for me?"

"Ohhhhh, happy birthday, Catherine!"

She was so happy that she got to remind him. So she got dressed and decided to put her hair up in a pony tail. This is a relatively new thing for her--she just recently figured out how to get all of her hair in the pony, and then twist it around to make sure it stays tight enough. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she should probably leave it down. She was happy with it, and I think she saw it as "special day = special hair-do." Good for her. She also added some jewelry to the ensemble today. Catherine is and never has been a "girly-girl." So I made sure to tell her how great she looked wearing the necklace she made from the bead kit she got from Sharkey & JP for Christmas. She was all ready to head out for her big day.

Last week she told me that she would like to bring some chocolate chip cookies to school for her birthday treat. So Jason bought enough for everyone in her class to have 2 cookies. Her teacher gave her the option to give everyone 2 cookies or else give her classmates 1 cookie, and then pass the rest out to others throughout the school. She decided to do the latter. So she grabbed a friend, and they spent the next half hour delivering cookies to other teachers, the principal, etc. Her teacher told me that when they got back, they had given out all 24 cookies! She had an ulterior motive here--she wasn't just spreading the love. A lot of the people who they gave cookies to gave her a little something in return. She got pencils, stickers, all kinds of little treasures. This added much enjoyment to her special day.

Last year, the American Cancer Society's annual "Daffodil Days" was close to her birthday. So Jason bought some at work, and gave them to her as part of her gift. She loved it! I was really surprised that it meant anything to her. So anyway, he got her flowers again this year, and had them sent to school, so that it would add to the "specialness" of her day. It worked. Her teacher said that everyone thought it was the greatest thing that her dad sent her flowers (and a bunny!). Truth be told, Jason forgot to order them the last 2 nights, so I called a florist this morning as soon as I got to work. She doesn't need to know that! Anyway, she absolutely loves her roses and her bunny!

Thinking back to about 5 or so years ago, I never would have thought that Catherine would be such a sweet little girl. She was a very difficult toddler. She was very independent and had her own ideas about how things should be done. I always joke that her "terrible two's" lasted for about 3 years. If I could have somehow figured out how to get her some nourishment without actually having to feed her, I would have been the happiest mom on earth. Mealtimes were always a nightmare. There was just no pleasing her, and it can be hard to like a kid like that. But now I look at how much she's changed, and what a great disposition she has. She's got a great attitude, has lots of friends, and is doing great in school. Her teacher says that she'd take her home if she could. (I asked if I could call her sometime) She's always willing to give out hugs, whereas when she was younger, that's the last thing she wanted, even if she got hurt. She says the funniest things, and I can't believe how much she's changing and growing up. I really enjoy being with her now. I just hope we can keep things this way, even through the dreaded teenage years. Happy Birthday, Catherine. I love you!

These kids are going to drive me to drink

2006-03-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

Seriously. I'm having a drink right now. Nothing horrible has happened and no one has physically harmed another person. But they're driving me crazy! Let's start at the beginning.

Last night when I picked the 2 older kids up at daycare, the daycare lady told me that Catherine had gotten into a little bit of trouble. She and another kid took the family kitty and put her in the toy refrigerator, and would not let her out. Not nice. The cat was fine, but still, she knows better. So we get home, and it was just one of those nights that I was really crabby for no apparent reason. I gave everyone fair warning. "I'm just a little bit crabby tonight. None of you has done anything wrong, but you'll probably be better off to just leave me alone." And mostly, they did. There was some whining, a lot of screwing around, and questions of "why are you crabby?" Through gritted teeth, I replied, "I don't know. Go somewhere else." Things got better throughout the evening, until along came The Lie.

After her shower, I sent Catherine upstairs to brush her teeth. She was back downstairs within a minute and a half. I mentioned that she must have brushed pretty quickly, because it didn't take her very long. I asked her to show me her teeth. (I do this thing that only a mom would do--I scrape their teeth with my fingernail and then prove to them how pitiful of a job they did, by making them look at the crap that I scraped off.) So I looked at her teeth, and they didn't look too bad. But I knew something was up. I told her to breathe on me. Hmmm. "Why doesn't that smell minty fresh?" She tells me she doesn't know. So I asked her again, "Did you brush your teeth?" She told me she did, but that she didn't use any toothpaste. What??? "GET BACK UP THERE AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH--WITH TOOTHPASTE THIS TIME!!!" What is that all about? Gross.

We have a rule in our house that there are to be no video games played on school nights, so no video games in the morning before school should be a given. When I got up this morning, Catherine was already up, and had gone downstairs. So I went down there to tell her to start getting ready for school, and what do you think she was doing? No guesses? Let me help you. She was playing video games. (She has also been busted for playing her GameBoy DS under the covers at 10:30pm on a school night.) WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? "I don't know," she said, very meekly. I don't know either. She made up a story about thinking that it was Saturday morning, not Friday morning. Wrong. Then she admitted to the lie. Two big fat lies within 12 hours. What kind of kid are we raising? We had a long heart-to-heart just a few minutes ago, and I hope I got through to her.

So during this time of crabbiness last night, Alex was being himself, which is almost always a good thing. However, lately, Jason and I have taken to calling him "Jibber Jabber." He just rambles on and on about anything and everything, and it will drive you crazy if you're with him for any decent amount of time. It gets to the point where we just have to say, "Jibber Jabber! Quiet down, will ya?" It might sound rude for parents to talk to their kids this way, but seriously, sometimes it's all I can do to not pull my hair out when he's on a roll. So, while he wasn't doing anything wrong, he was still adding to the crabbiness.

Then there's Lauren. Cutest child to walk the face of the earth. Drives me crazy like no one else can, come bedtime. She always needs "something else." That "something else" might be a drink, a band-aid, another hug or kiss, or another stuffed animal from her toy box. If she's really desperate, she'll claim to have to go potty. That would be great news--if she actually did have to go. That's a tough one, and she knows it. We're trying desperately to get her potty trained, but she's just plain indifferent. I hate to tell her that she can't go potty, but I don't want to reward her stall tactics, either. We both win that one 50% of the time. When she finally gets into her crib, (a big-girl bed has been promised for when she stops peeing in her pull-up) she can barely fit, for all the stuffed animals and blankets she has in there. And she wants every single blanket on her. I counted tonight when I covered her up, and there were 12 blankets on her! Twelve! And within probably about 4 minutes of me walking out of the bedroom, she will be laying on top of them.

So anyway, I think I feel a little bit better now. Two out of 3 kids are in bed, with the 3rd one going soon. It's Friday night, which doesn't suck, and the weather was beautiful today and should continue to be warm over the weekend. Right now, 50 degrees is warm to us, and it felt great to have the doors open again! Perfect timing--I'm almost done with my drink.

Way too young

2006-03-07T19:52:00.000-06:00

Last night as Jason and I were watching 24, a "breaking news" bulletin crawled along the bottom of the TV screen. Right away, I said to him, "Uh-oh, it's Kirby." And it was. Former Minnesota Twin, Kirby Puckett died after having a massive stroke on Sunday. He was only 45 years old. I've never been a huge baseball fan. If a game was on TV, I might pay attention when the announcer was clearly agitated or excited by something, but it's never been high on my list of things to do. But I think that just about every Minnesotan, whether they're a baseball fan or not, was a fan of Kirby Puckett. The way he played the game, they way he treated his fans, especially kids, and his huge smile. He's just one of those people that, when they're gone, you just can't believe it. It's really a shame.

Then, when I got to work this morning, I saw that Dana Reeve died yesterday as well. She was only 44 years old. They had done a good job of making us think that she was doing OK, so I was really surprised. After all she went through with her husband, she deserved a long, healthy life. I feel bad for their kids, whose parents are now both gone. It's just not fair.

Neither one of these events actually moved me to tears--that's hard to do. But both of them have been on my mind all day. Like Kirby said in a speech one time, "None of us is promised tomorrow." That's a good thing to keep in the back of your mind on the days when the "little things" are getting to you.

That kid cracks me up

2006-03-05T20:42:00.000-06:00

Tonight after eating dinner, (pancakes, yum!) Alex and Catherine were still sitting at the table screwing around and joking. Lauren came running to me in the kitchen, and shouted in her most concerned voice, "Alex and Catherine are not being-have!"

How's this for a first post?

2006-03-03T21:08:00.000-06:00

So I've been considering doing this blogging thing for a while now. I go back and forth. I think, "Sure, just do it. It's a great way to keep track of things that happen with the kids, and life in general." Then I think, "Do I have enough stuff to write about?" Well, considering that I have 3 kids, there should be no shortage of fodder. Sometimes, I'll tell my sister, Sharkey, a story about one of the kids. Then she'll encourage me, and tell me that that could be my first post! So anyhoo, here goes.

Yesterday at work, I got a call on my cell phone. The display said, "Jason Work". It was my husband. I was in the middle of something important, so I ignored him. A few minutes later, it rang again, and again, it was him. I figured something must be up for him to call me on my cell phone twice in a span of 5 minutes, so I answered. He told me that the school called him, and that Catherine was sick. He couldn't leave work, as he was the only manager on duty, so it was up to me. Now this was about 9:20am, and school doesn't even start until 9:25, so the day was only going to go downhill from here.

So I arrive at the school, and head into the Health Office. The nurse told me that her driver brought her in after she vomited. Her driver? What driver? The kids walk to school from daycare, which is only about 3 blocks. Then I realized who she must have meant. Sometimes Billy's (another daycare kid) dad drives the kids to school, just for the heck of it. Do you see where this is going? Yes, she puked in his car!!! This man, who I've only chit-chatted with a few times while we're both there to pick up the kids, who was nice enough to give my kids a ride to school too, who drives an Acura, now has the stench of my daughter's vomit in his very expensive car. I was mortified! I called our daycare lady to get his phone number so I could apologize. And apologize I did--profusely. He was so nice about it though! I don't think everyone would have been that understanding. Heck, I don't think I would have been, if it was my car. I offered to pay to have his car detailed, but he told me that it wouldn't be necessary. He said she was very careful to keep it to herself, and being that he has leather seats, it just wiped up easily. I still feel horrible, but he definitely put my mind at ease about the whole thing. He was so understanding about it, it makes me wonder what horrible things his kid has done in the past!

She doesn't look like she could do any harm, does she?